They had various bird-shooting excursions, riding out with a couple of pointers, and, so soon as the dogs stood to game, dismounting from their ponies and walking into their shots. In this way they made some pretty bags of Coqui and red-wing francolin, koorhaan, and guinea-fowl. One or two adventures befell Guy at this period. One day they had sallied out to hunt a troop of hartebeest, which ran on a distant part of the farm. After finding the troop in some prettily-timbered country, well covered with giraffe-acacia, the three had become separated, Guy galloping mile after mile in pursuit of a good bull which he had wounded. The hartebeest, turning out of the troop and quitting the wooded glades in which the herd had been discovered, took away over the open plains. Guy was well mounted, and for a long seven miles pushed after the big red-brown antelope, which swept away in front of him with a free, machine-like action that, despite its wound--a bullet through the middle of the body--showed no symptom of tiring. At length the hartebeest climbed the ridge of a wave in the grass plain, and disappeared. Guy’s pony, good and willing as he was, was now tiring visibly. The lad doubted whether he could gallop much farther--the pace had been too great--and the game looked like getting clean away. It was too annoying. They reached the top of the ridge, and looked over. Nothing living was to be seen; the plain was untenanted. Apparently the antelope had vanished into thin air. But Guy’s keen eye noted, half a mile or so to the right, a widish patch of vaal bush. Towards this he now rode. He approached within thirty yards, and dismounted. Just as he did so, the wounded antelope rose slowly to its feet from within the shelter of the bush, and essayed to canter off. Too late! The gallant beast had made its last effort and taken its final gallop. Guy’s rifle went up, and as the antelope slowly moved away, another bullet from the Mannlicher pierced its heart. It tumbled suddenly to the veldt, and after a brief kick or two lay dead.