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 intently in an attempt to locate them. At first I thought they had gone out of hearing, when I suddenly discovered the rear elevation of a bull not more than twenty feet from us. He was motionless. We had come in so quietly that he had not heard us, and then I did not dare move for fear of attracting his attention. I craned my neck in an effort to get a glimpse of his tusks, and in doing this I became conscious of a cow standing beside the bull and looking straight at us. Bill was about five feet back and to one side of me. I stood motionless, without swinging my gun in the cow's direction, but waited for her to make the move. I doubt whether she saw us distinctly. The bull began to move away and the cow, in turning to follow, moved a pace more or less in my direction. I was perfectly certain that she was going to follow the bull, and to Bill there was no indication that I had seen her. Bill thought she was coming at me, raised his gun, and fired point blank into the cow's face. The elephants bolted. I wheeled and slapped Bill, because he had broken one of the rules of the game, which is that a black boy must never shoot without orders unless his master is down and at the mercy of a beast. Of course it did not take long for me to come to a realization that Bill's shooting was done in perfectly good faith because he thought that I had not seen the cow, and he also thought that she was coming straight at me. Bill's heart was broken and my apologies were forthcoming and were as humble as the dignity of a white man would permit.