We wouldn't get a better chance--if we got another chance at all. Chris wedged a pack against the base of a bush helped her steady the rifle over it. The slope was so steep that I crawled below her and braced myself, letting her put her feet against me to keep from sliding down the hill.

She hit him, and he went down, vanishing into the rocks, and by now there was little daylight left. Chris and I took off up the mountain, but I quickly trailed behind. Chris found the tahr, and I found Chris. It was getting dark fast, and it was steep and dangerous. We couldn't get to the animal that night, but we knew where he was.

In the morning we (actually, Chris) got it down to the riverbed where we could admire it, and it was stunning. My tahr is a beautiful trophy, the kind of tahr I had wanted ever since I first hunted them 15 years ago. Brittany's was even better than mine--in all ways.

The very next morning we left for Australia, leaving the cold air coming off the snowy mountains and, at about 11 o'clock that night, stepping out into the humid tropical air of Darwin, capital of Australia's Northern Territories. Bob Penfold was waiting for us.

We rolled into Bob's comfortable tent camp at Dorisvale cattle station at three in the morning. Over the next two days, Brittany and I shot several good wild boars. I was a bit concerned about the power level of the .405 Win. and the performance of its light-for-caliber bullets on the buffalo that were to come next, but the Hornady bullets performed wonderfully and now we were ready to strike deep into the aboriginal homelands of Eastern Arnhem Land for buffalo.

It took another 12 hours of hard driving to reach Penfold's buffalo camp, not far from the saltwater of Blue Mud Bay. It isn't necessary to travel far for water buffalo, but you do have to go a ways to find the big bulls we were looking for. We found them, almost too easily. Brittany's came on the first day, only a few kilometers from camp.

Australia's plentiful feral hogs proved a good test of the Ruger No. 1 in .405 Win. and put the author's mind at ease prior to tackling buffalo.

He was huge in the body. Water buffalo are much larger than Cape buffalo anyway, but this one was a monster, with those wonderfully widespread horns that the Aussies call "sweepers." First day or last, we couldn't pass this one.

We tried a stalk in heavy cover but failed to get a shot. The bull solved this for us a few minutes later by advancing straight toward us. He wasn't aggressive, but he advanced steadily with his head down and was 12 yards away when she finally got the shot she wanted.

She took him perfectly on the point of the shoulder as he quartered to us, and that little .405 hit him so hard that I was sure he was going down. Not quite; he recovered and staggered off into the brush, dropping after about 80 yards.

Brittany's bull was really a dandy, far better than any I had taken on previous trips. I had several days to look, and I didn't really think I would find one quite like that, but I was wrong.

It was a hot midday, with nothing moving--and suddenly there he was, plain as day in open trees. My shot with the .405 was a bit more broadside than Brittany's, but the result was the same. The only difference was that, in the open eucalyptus, I was able to run with him and complete the job, stuffing shells into the Ruger and firing again as I ran.

Okay, I was due--he was just a wee bit bigger than Brittany's bull. But I liked the cool, calm way she handled that close-range shot even better. And between us we'd had a wonderful hunt.

For information on hunting tahr, visit www.huntnzsafaris.com. For information on hunting buffalo, visit www.huntaust.com.au.