Again the Colonel’s rifle rang out and Mr. Thick-hide rolled over dead. This was the first rhinoceros Colonel Myles had ever shot, and he was proud of his achievement, as well he might be, for it is not an easy thing to kill a rhinoceros. If you do not hit him in exactly the right place you might as well fire at a brick wall. But Colonel Myles was a capital shot, although he had never had such difficult creatures to shoot as this great animal which now lay at his feet. Perhaps his alligator hunts in Florida had taught him how to aim at iron-clad game, but there is a difference between shooting alligators and rhinoceroses. If you miss the alligator there is generally an end of the matter, for he will plunge into the water as soon as he can, and disappear. But if you miss the rhinoceros he will plunge after you, and if you cannot disappear very rapidly there may be an end of the matter, but in the wrong way. The horse did not run very far, and one of the swift-footed negroes soon caught him. This was not the only occasion when a rhinoceros proved a very dangerous animal to hunt. One day the Colonel was out with a large party. One man besides himself was mounted on a horse, and there were half-a-dozen negroes on foot, well armed with guns. [Illustration: THE RHINOCEROS AFTER THE COLONEL.] For some time they scoured the country without finding any signs of a rhinoceros, but at last the tracks of one were discovered, and he was followed up to his retreat. When Colonel Myles first caught sight of him he was standing quietly under a tree. Our hunter took a good aim at him and fired, but just as he fired, his horse, apparently bitten by a fly, gave a start, and the ball struck the rhinoceros on one of his heavy flaps of skin, with just enough effect to make him turn around to see who was there. Then the Colonel fired again—he had a double-barreled rifle—and this time the ball struck the rhinoceros fair on the nose, and it made him mad. Without stopping to consider the matter, he turned squarely round and charged down straight upon the hunters. The Colonel had no time to reload his gun, so he put spurs to his horse and dashed away as fast as he could go. The other man on horseback did not wait for the savage beast to come after him but galloped off in another direction. As to the negroes, they seemed to forget that they had guns, or else they thought that if the Colonel could not hit the beast in the right spot there was no use in their trying to do it. At any rate they took to their heels. As the rhinoceros dashed on, he ran right over one negro, knocking him heels over head, and he came after the Colonel and his horse at a rate that gave good reason to expect that in a minute or two he would get his horn under the horse and toss him over. But the horse was a good one and he kept ahead of the beast until his rider loaded again. Then the Colonel turned and as he was so near the rhinoceros he put a ball into him that rolled him over dead.