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During this time I had been laboring through the heavy sand, and shortly after I arrived at the fight the elephant charged directly through the aggageers, receiving a shoulder-shot from one of my Reilly No. 10 rifles, and at the same time a slash from the sword of Abou Do, who with great dexterity and speed had closed in behind him, just in time to reach the leg.
And while they talked, the voices of the snow-waters round them diminished one by one as the night-frost choked and clogged the runnels. 'How he stood up against us! said a Spiti man admiring. 'I remember an old ibex, out Ladakh-way, that Dupont Sahib missed on a shoulder-shot, seven seasons back, standing up just like him. Dupont Sahib was a good shikarri.
In the mean time I fired my last No. 8 into the shoulder of an elephant that had just climbed the bank and gained the island. I now had a glorious opportunity of a shoulder-shot at every animal as it should ascend the steep incline. My ammunition was exhausted!
With the Fletcher 24 I made a good shoulder-shot; the buck gave a few bounds and fell dead; the does looked on in astonishment, and I made an equally lucky shot with the left-hand barrel, bringing down what I at first had mistaken to be a doe, but I discovered it to be a young buck.
"She may love him without knowing it. Anyhow, he's a fine young lad, far better for her than an old shoulder-shot cayuse like meself." His sense of unworthiness became the solvent of other and sweeter emotions. His wealth no longer seemed capable of bridging the deep chasm widening between them.
Banda was very anxious that this rogue should be killed before we attacked the herd, and he begged me to give him a shoulder-shot with the four-ounce rifle, while Wortley and Palliser were to fire at his head!
My servant, Suleiman, had sent the little bag that contained only one reload for the breech-loaders, and no powder flask or shells for the half-pounders. I had now the annoyance of witnessing the difficult ascent of the elephants in single file, exposing their flanks in succession to the shoulder-shot, while I remained a helpless looker-on.
I could hardly see them distinctly, and I waited for a good chance, when presently a mighty bull separated from the rest, and gave me a fair shoulder-shot. I fired a little too forward, and missed the shoulder; but I made a still better shot by mistake, as the Reilly bullet broke the spine through the neck, and dropped him dead.
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