"Now, you see, boys, the hippopotami are a good deal like you--they have favorite spots along the river where they go in swimming, and sometimes a good many will go in together, and have a good bath of mud and water. The black hunters find out these places, but it wouldn't do to go straight for them. You'd only scare them away if you did that. "Mr. Lloyd and I let the black hunters do things their own way; and they had made our camp, the night before, two good miles above one of these wallowing-places. So, when we started, we let the boat and the two canoes float down with the current, just steering them a little, and you never saw so many men keep so still. It was dreadfully warm, and we'd have envied the black men if it hadn't been for the mosquitoes. They didn't seem to mind them, but we were glad enough there were some spots on us where the ugly little scamps couldn't bite to do any harm. I believe, though, that my black servant would have stripped off his clothes if he hadn't been so proud of them. Suddenly one of the black hunters in my boat put his hand on my arm, and pointed at something a little ahead of the canoe on the left. "It was something big and black coming slowly up through the water. A little pair of ears very wide apart; then the great eyes that seemed to stick right out; then the nose--there was no use in asking whose head that was. Just enough of his body followed above the surface to give the black hunter in the prow of that canoe a fair mark for his harpoon. He was close up when he threw it; and he drove it in good and deep, now I tell you. I felt sure it would stick, but it must have astonished that river-horse. He gave a tremendous angry sort of grunt and a great jump, and the head of the harpoon came out of the socket, just as it was meant to, and off he started down stream. He pulled that canoe along fast enough, and the rest of us paddled for dear life. "I tried hard to get a shot at him, and so did Lloyd, whenever any of him showed above water, but our bullets must have glanced from his hard wet hide, if any of them hit him, and I'm not half sure they did. "You've no idea at what a rate he managed to travel. It was hot work to keep anywhere near him. We wanted him to go ashore or into shallow water, where we could get at him. They're a good deal more dangerous in the water than they are out of it. "He was more scared than hurt, though, and he didn't care a copper what we wanted; but in one of his turns he gave me a chance to put a rifle-bullet into his side." "Did it kill him?" Both boys had spoken at once. "No, it didn't kill him, but it made him angry, and just then one of the black hunters drove a spear into him. "Then the fight began. He was furious with pain, and didn't seem to care any more for spears and bullets after that than I did for the mosquitoes. He dived and rose, and dived and rose, and tried every way to get at us, and the black men had to ply their paddles more than their spears.