He had brought the heavy sporting rifle which had accounted for Imbono's enemy the hippopotamus in the river. Selecting the largest of the herd--they were the red buffaloes of the district, a good deal smaller than the kind he had seen in America--he fired and brought it down. The others broke away towards a clump of euphorbias, and Jack got another shot as they disappeared; but neither this nor the small-bore bullets of the chiefs' rifles appeared to take effect, for in an instant, as it seemed, the whole remaining herd vanished from sight.
Jack slipped two more cartridges into his empty chamber, and, leaving the bush from behind which he had fired, ran towards his kill. It was his first buffalo, and only those who have known the delight of bagging their first big game could appreciate his elation and excitement. He outstripped the rest of his party. The two chiefs, chagrined at their failure to bring down the animals at which they had aimed, seemed to have lost all interest in the hunt. Samba left them discussing with Lepoko the relative merits of their rifles, and hurried on after his master.
Jack bent over the prostrate body. Despite the tremor of excitement he had felt as he cocked his rifle he found that his aim had been true: the buffalo had been shot through the brain. At that moment--so strange are mental associations--he wished his school chum Tom Ingestre could have been there. Tom was the keenest sportsman in the school; how he would envy Jack when he saw the great horns and skull hanging as a trophy above the mantelpiece when he paid that promised visit to New York!
But while recollections of "Tiger Tom," as the school had nicknamed him, were running through his mind, Jack was suddenly startled by a bellow behind him and a couple of shots. Springing erect, he faced round towards the sound, to see Samba's dark body darting between himself and a second buffalo plunging towards him from the direction of the bushes. As happened once to Stanley travelling between Vivi and Isangila, the suddenness of the onset for the moment paralysed his will; he was too young a sportsman to be ready for every emergency. But the most seasoned hunter could not have dared to fire, for Samba's body at that instant almost hid the buffalo from view, coming as it did with lowered head.