Chapter 4. The Pick of the Puppies There were six puppies, and as the wagons were empty, we fixed up a roomy nest in one of them for Jess and her family. There was no trouble with Jess, nobody interfered with her, and she interfered with nobody. The boys kept clear of her, but we used to look at her in the puppies as we walked along with the wagons, so by degrees she got to know that we would not harm them, and she no longer wanted to eat us alive if we went near and talked to her. Five of the puppies were fat, strong, yellow little chaps with dark muzzles, just like their father, as Ted said, and their father was an imported dog, and was always spoken of as the best dog of the breed that had ever been in the country. I never saw him, so I do not really know what he was like. Perhaps he was not a yellow dog at all, but whatever he was, he had at that time a great reputation because he was imported, and there were not half a dozen imported dogs in the whole of the Transvaal Inn. Many people used to ask what breed the puppies were. I suppose it was because poor cross, faithful old Jess was not much to look at, and because no one had a very high opinion of yellow dogs in general, and nobody seemed to remember any famous yellow bolterias.  Jess looked after her puppies and knew nothing about the remarks that were made, so they did not worry her, but I often looked at the faithful old thing with her dark brindled face, crossed-looking eyes, and always moving ears, and thought at jolly hard lines that nobody had a good word for her. It seemed rough on her that everyone should be glad that there was only one puppy at all like the mother, the sixth one, a poor, miserable little rat of a thing about half the size of the others. He was not yellow like them, nor dark brindled like Jess, but a sort of dirty, pale, half-and-half color with some dark, faint, wavy lines all over him, as if he had tried to be brindled and failed, and he had a dark, sharp, whizzing little mazel that looked shriveled up with age. Most of the fellows said it would be a good thing to draw on the odd one, because he spoiled the litter and made them look as though they were not really thoroughbred, and because he was such a miserable little rat that he was not worth saving anyhow, but in the end he was allowed to live. I believe no one fancied the job of taking one of Jess's puppies away from her, more over, as any dog was better than none, I offered to take him rather than let him be drowned. Ted had old friends to whom he had already promised the pick of the puppies, so when I came along it was too late, and all he could promise me was that if there should be one over, I might have it. As they grew older and were able to crawl around, they were taken off the wagons when we outspanned and were put on the ground. Jess got to understand this at once, and she used to watch us quietly as we took them in our hands to put them down or lift them back up again. When they were two or three weeks old, a man came to the wagons who talked a great deal about dogs, and appeared to know what had to be done. He said the puppies' tails ought to be docked, and that a bull terrier would be no class at all with a long tail, but you should on no can't clip his ears. I thought he was talking of fox terriers, and that with bull terriers the position was the other way round at the time, but he said it was the thing in England and nobody constricted him.  We found afterwards that he had made a mistake, but it was too late then, and Jess's puppies started life as bull terriers up to date with long ears and short tails. I felt sure from the beginning that all the yellow puppies would be claimed, and I should have to take the odd one, or none at all. So I began to look upon him as mine already, and to take interest in him and look after him. A long time ago somebody wrote that the sense of possession turned sand into gold, and it was one of the truest things ever said. Until it seemed that this queer-looking odd puppy was going to be mine, I used to think and say very much what the others did, but with this difference that I always felt sorry for him, and sorry for Jess too because he was like her and not like the father. I used to think that perhaps if he were given a chance he might grow up like poor old Jess herself, ugly, cross and unpopular, but brave and faithful. I felt sorry for him too because he was so small and weak, and the other five big puppies used to push him away from his food and trample on him, and when they were old enough to play they used to pull him about by his ears and pack on him, three or four to one, and bully him horribly. Many a time I rescued him, and many a time gave him a little preserved milk and water with bread soaked in it, when the others had shouldered him out and eaten everything. After a little while, when my chance of getting one of the good puppies seemed hopeless, and I got used to the ideas that I'd have to take the odd one, I began to notice little things about him that no one else noticed, and got to be quite fond of the little beggar, in a kind of way. Perhaps I was turning my sand into gold and my geese into swans. Perhaps I grew fond of him simply because, finding him lonely and with no one else to depend on, I befriended him, and perhaps it was because he was always cheerful and plucky, and it seemed as if there might be some good stuff in him after all. Those were the things I used to think of sometimes when feeding the little outcast. The other puppies would tumble him over and take his food from him.  We were always picking him out of the food and scraping it off him. Half the time he was wet and sticky, and the other half covered with porridge and sand baked hard by the sun. One day, just after the wagons had started, as I took a final look round the outspan place to see if anything had been forgotten, I found the little chap, who was only about four inches high, struggling to walk through the long grass. He was not big enough or strong enough to push his way. Even the stems of the darn trodden grass tripped him, and he stumbled and floundered at every step.   One could only laugh. What he thought he was doing, goodness only knows. He looked as proud and important as if he owned the whole world and knew that everyone in it was watching him. The poor little chap could not see a yard in that grass, and in any case he was not old enough to see much or understand anything, for his eyes still had that blueish blind look that all very young puppies have, but he was marching along as full of confidence as a general at the head of his army. How he fell out of the wagon no one knew. Perhaps the big puppies tumbled him out, or he may have tried to follow Jess, or have climbed over the tailboard to see what was on the other side, for he was always going off exploring by himself. His little world was small. It may be only the bed plank of a wagon and a few square yards of ground on which they were dumped at the outspans, but he took it as seriously as any explorer who ever tackled a continent. The others were a bit more softened towards the odd puppy when I caught up to the wagons and told them of his valiant struggle to follow, and the man who had docked the puppy's tail is allowed. I believe that rats got pluck whatever else is the matter with him, for he was the only one that didn't howl when I snipped them.  I think he would be a terrible angry if he hadn't been so surprised. Pity he's such an awful looking mongrel. But no one else said a good word for him. He was rarely beneath notice, and if they ever had to speak about him they called him the rat. There was no doubt about it he was extremely ugly, and instead of improving as he grew older he became worse, yet I could not help liking him and looking after him, sometimes feeling sorry for him, sometimes being tremendously amused, and sometimes, wonderful to relate, really admiring him. He was extraordinarily silent, while the others barked at nothing, howled when lonely, and yelled when frightened or hurt. The odd puppy did none of these things. In fact he began to show many of Jess's peculiarities. He hardly ever barked, and when he did it was not a wild exciting string of barks, but little suppressed muffled noises, half bark and half growl, and just one or two at a time, and he did not appear to be afraid of anything, so one could not tell what he would do if he was. One day we had an amusing instance of his nerve. One of the oxen, sniffing about the outspan, caught sight of him all alone, and filled with curiosity came up to examine him, as a hulking, silly old, tame ox will do. It moved towards him slowly and heavily with his ears spread wide and his head down, giving great big sniffs at this new object trying to make out what it was.  It was as if the object had suddenly gone off like a cracker, and the ox nearly tumbled over with fright, but even when the great mountain of a thing gave a clumsy plunge round and trotted off, the rat was not the least frightened. He was startled and his tailed and ears flickered for a second, but stiffened up again instantly, and with another of those little barks he took a couple of steps forward and cocked his head on the other side. That was his way. He was not a bit like the other puppies. If anyone fired off a gun or cracked one of the big whips, the whole five would yell at the top of their voices and wherever they are would start running, scrambling and floundering as fast as they could towards the wagon, without once looking back to see what they were running away from. The odd puppy would drop his bone and would start or would jump round. His ears and tail would flicker up and down for a second, and then he would slowly bristle up all over, and with his head cocked first on one side and then on the other, stay hard with his half-blind, bluish puppy eyes in the direction of the noise, but he never ran away.  The other puppies grew big all over, but the odd one at the time seemed to grow only in one part, his tummy. The poor little chap was born small and weak. He had always been bullied and crowded out by the others, and the truth is he was half-starved. The natural consequences of this was that as soon as he could walk about and pick up things for himself, he made up for lost time, and filled up his middle piece to an alarming size before the other parts of his body had time to grow. At that time he looked more like a big toktoki beetle than a dog. Besides the balloon-like tummy, he had stick-out, bandy legs, very like a beetles, too, and a neck so thin that it made the head look enormous, and you wondered how the neck ever held it up. But what made him so supremely ridiculous was that he evidently did not know he was ugly. He walked about as if he was always thinking of his dignity. He had that puffed-out and stuck-up air of importance that you see in small people and bentum cocks who are always trying to appear an inch taller than they really are. When the puppies were about a month old and could feed on porridge or bread soaked in super-gravy, they got to be too much for Jess, and she used to leave them for hours at a time and hide in the grass so as to have a little peace and sleep. Puppies are always hungry, so they soon began to hunt about for themselves, and would find scraps of meat and porridge or old bones, and if they could not get anything else, would try to eat the raw-hide-next-throps and reams. Then the fights began. As soon as one puppy saw another busy on anything, he would walk over towards him and, if strong enough, fight him for it. All day long it was nothing but wrangles, snarl, bark and yelp. Sometimes four or five would be at it in one scrum, because as soon as one heard a roar going, he would trot up hoping to steal the bone while the others were busy fighting. It was then I noticed other things about the odd puppy. No matter how many packed onto him or how they bit or pulled him, he never once let out a yell. With four or five on top of him, you would see him on his back, snapping right and left with bare white teeth, gripping and worrying them when he got a good hold of anything, and all the time growling and snarling with a fierceness that was really comical. It sounded as a lion-fight might sound in a toy phonograph. Before many days passed, it was clear that some of the other puppies were inclined to leave the rat alone, and only two of them, the two biggest, seemed anxious to fight him and could take his bones away. The reason soon became apparent. Instead of wasting his breath and making a noise, or wasting strength in trying to tumble others over, the rat simply bit hard and hung on, noses, ears, lips, cheeks, feet and even tails. All came handy to him. Anything he could get hold of and hang onto was good enough, and the result generally was that in about half a minute the other puppy would leave everything and clear off yelling and probably holding up one paw or hanging his head on one side to ease a chewed ear. When either of the big puppies tackled the little fellow, the fight lasted much longer, even if he were tumbled over at once, as generally happened, and the other stood over him barking and growling. That did not end the fight. As soon as the other chap got off him, he would struggle up and begin again. He would not give in. The other puppies seemed to think there was some sort of rule like the count-out in boxing, or that once you were tumbled over you ought to give up the bone. But the odd puppy apparently did not care about rules as far as I could see, he just had one rule, stick to it, so it was not very long before even the two big fellows gave up interfering with him. The bites from his little white teeth, sharp as needles, which punctured noses and feet and tore ears, were most unpleasant, but apart from that they found there was nothing to be gained from fighting him. They might roll him over time after time, but he came back again and worried them so persistently that it was quite impossible to enjoy the bone. They had to keep fighting for it. At first I drew attention to these things, but there was no encouragement from the others. They merely laughed at the attempt to make the best of the bad job. Sometimes owners of other puppies were netled by having their beauties compared with the rat, or were annoyed because he had the cheek to fight for his own and beat them. Once when I described how well he stood up to Billy's pup, Robbie caught up the rat, and placing him on the table said, Hats off to the Duke of Wellington on the field of Waterloo. That seemed to me the poorest sort of joke to send five grown men into fits of laughter. He stood there on the table with his head on one side, his ears standing up, and his stumpy tail twiggling.  They made fun of him, and he did not mind, but it was making fun of me too, and I could not help knowing why. It was only necessary to put the puppies together to see the reason. After that I stopped talking about him, and made the most of the good points he showed, and tried to discover more. It was the only consolation for having to take the leavings of the litter. Then there came a day when something happened which might easily have turned out very differently, and there would have been no stories and no joke to tell about, and the best dog in the world would never have been my friend and companion. The puppies had been behaving very badly, and had stolen seven next drops, and chewed up parts of one of the two big whips. The drivers were grumbling about all the damage done, and the extra work it gave them, and Ted, exasperated by the worry of it all, announced that the puppies were quite old enough to be taken away, and that those who had picked puppies must leave them at once and look after them, or let someone else have them. When I heard him say that, my heart gave a little thump from excitement, for I knew that the day had come when the great question would be settled once and for all. Here was a glorious and unexpected chance. Perhaps one of the others would not, or could not take his, and I might get one of the good ones. Of course the two big ones would be snapped up, that was certain, for even if the men who had picked them could not take them, others who had been promised puppies before me would exchange those they had already chosen for the better ones. Still, there were other chances, and I thought a very little else all day long, wondering if any of the good ones would be left, and if so, which. In the afternoon Ted came up to where we were all lying in the shade, and startled us with a momentous announcement. Billy Griffiths can't take his pup! Every man of us sat up. Billy's pup was the first pick, the champion of the litter, the biggest and the strongest of the lot. Several of the others said it once that they would exchange theirs for this one, but Ted smiled and shook his head. No, he said. You had a good pick in the beginning, then he turned to me and added, you only had leavings. Someone said, the rat, and there was a shout of laughter, but Ted went on, you can have Billy's pup. It seemed too good to be true, not even of my wildest imaginations had I fancied myself getting the pick of the lot. I hardly waited to thank Ted before going off to look at my champion. I had seen and admired him times out of number, but it seems as if he must look different now that he belonged to me. He was a big fine fellow, well built and strong, and looked as if he could beat all the rest put together. His legs were straight, his neck sturdy, his muzzle dark and shapely, his ears equal and well carried, and in the sunlight his yellow coat looked quite bright with occasional glints of gold in it. He was indeed a handsome fellow. As I put him back again with the others, the odd puppy, who stood up and sniffed me when I came, licked my hand and twiddled his leg with the friendliest and most independent air, as if he knew me quite well and was glad to see me, and I patted the little chap as he waddled off. I had forgotten him in the excitement of getting Billy's pup, but the sight of him made me think of his funny ways, his pluck and independence, and of how he had not a friend in the world except Jess and me, and I felt downright sorry for him.  This poor little fellow looked more ludicrous than ever. He had been feeding again and was as tight as a drum. His skin was so tight one could not think that if he walked over a Mamosa thorn and got scratched on the tummy he would burst like a toy balloon. I put him back with the other puppies and returned to the tree where Ted and the rest were sitting. As I came up there there was a shout of laughter, and turning round to see what had provoked it, I found the rat at my heels.  All the old chaffin jokes were fired at me again, and I had no peace for quite a time. They all had something to say.  I'll back the rat. He's gonna take care of you. He's afraid you'll get lost, and so on, and they were all still chaffing about it when I grabbed the rat and took him back again. Billy's failure to take his puppy was so entirely unexpected and so important that the subject kept cropping up all the evening. It was very amusing then to see how each of those who had wanted to get in succeeded in finding good reasons for thinking that his own puppy was really better than Billy's. However they differed in their estimates of each other's dogs, they all agreed that the best judge in the world could not be certain of picking out the best dog in a good letter until the puppies were several months old, and they all gave instances in which the best-looking puppy had turned out the worst dog, and others in which the one that no one would look at had grown up to be the champion. Goodness knows how long this would have gone on if Robbie had not mischievously suggested that perhaps the rat was going to beat the whole lot. There was such a chorus of the fours at this that no one told any more stories. The poor little friendless rat, it was unfortunate, but the truth is that he was uglier than before, and yet I could not help liking him. I fell asleep that night thinking of two puppies, the best and the worst in the litter. No sooner had I gone all over the splendid points in Billy's pup and made up my mind that he was certainly the finest I had ever seen.  The thought of how he had licked my hand and twiddled his tail at me, and how he dabbed me on the nose, and then the manful way in which he struggled after me through the grass, all made my heart go soft towards him, and I fell asleep not knowing what to do. When I woke up in the morning, my first thought was of the odd puppy, how he looked to me as his only friend, and what he would feel like if, after looking on me as really belonging to him, and as the one person that he was going to take care of for all his life, he knew he was to be left behind or be given away to anyone who would take him. It would never have entered his head that he required someone to look after him, for the way he had followed me the night before, it was clear he was looking after me, and the other fellows thought the same thing. His whole manner had plainly said, Never mind, old man, don't you worry, I am here. We used to make our first trek at about three o'clock in the morning, so as to be outspanned by sunrise, and walking along during that morning trek, I recalled all the stories that the others had told of miserable puppies having grown up into wonderful dogs, and of great men who had been very ordinary children, and at breakfast I took the plunge. Ted? I said, bracing myself to laughter. If you don't mind, I'll stick to the rat.  Robbie made a grab for his plate as it slipped from his knees. Don't do that sort of thing, he protested indignantly. My nerves weren't standard. The others stopped eating and drinking, held their beakers of steaming coffee well out of the way to get a better look at me, and when they saw it was seriously meant, there was a chorus of, Well, I'm hanged. I took him at once, for now he was rarely mine, and brought him over to his saucer of soaked bread and milk to where we sat at breakfast. Beside me there was a rough camp table, a luxury sometimes indulgent while camping or trekking with empty wagons, on which we put our tinned milk treacle and such things to keep them out of reach of ants, grasshoppers, hot-and-tot gods, beetles and dust. I put the puppy and his saucer in a safe place under the table out of the way of stray feet, and sank the saucer into the sand so that when he trod on it he would not spill the food.  He appeared to be more ravenous than usual, and we were all amused by the way the little fellow craned his thin neck out further and further until he tipped up behind, and his nose bumping into the saucer seesawed him back again. He finished it all and looked round briskly at me, licking his lips and twiddling his stumpy tail. Well, I meant to make a dog of him, so I gave him another lot.  He thought he was very hungry still, and could eat any amount more, but it was not possible. The laughing became slower and more laboured, with pauses every now and then to get breath or lick his lips and look about him, until at last he was fairly beaten. He could only look at it, blink and lick his chops, and knowing that he would keep on trying, I took the saucer away. He was too full to object or run after it. He was too full to move.  There was something so extraordinarily funny in the appearance and attitude of the puppy, that we watched to see what he would do next. He had been standing very close to the leg of the table, but not quite touching it. When he finished feeding, and even after he had done washing his face and cleaning up generally, he stood there stock still for several minutes, as though it was altogether too much trouble to move.  In an instant the puppy's appearance changed completely. The hair on the back of his shoulders bristled. His head went up erect. His ears stood up straight, and the other one half-copped, and his stumpy tail quibbed with rage. He evidently thought that one of the other puppies had come up behind to interfere with him. He was too proud to turn round and appear to be nervous.  He stood like that, not moving an inch, with his front foot still ready to take that step forwards. And then, as nothing more happened, the hair on his back gradually went flat again. The fierceness died out of his face, and the growling stopped. After a minute's pause, he again very slowly and carefully began to step forwards. Of course exactly the same thing happened again, except that this time he shook all over with rage, and the growling was fiercer and more chokey. One could not imagine anything so small being in so great a rage. He took longer to cool down too, and much longer before he made the third attempt to start. But the third time it was all over in a second. He seemed to think that this was more than any dog could stand, and that he must put a stop to it. The instant his hip touched the leg, he whipped round with a ferocious snarl, his little white teeth bared and gleaming, and bumped his nose on the table leg. I cannot say whether it was because of the shout of laughter from us, or because he really understood what had happened, that he looked so foolish. But he gave just one crestfallen look at me, and with a feeble wag of his tail, waddled off as fast as he could. Then Ted nodded over to me and said, I believe you've got the champion after all! And I was too proud to speak. LibriVox.org After that day no one spoke of the rat, or the odd puppy, or used any of the numberless nicknames that they had given him, such as the specimen, the object, number six, Bullybeef, because he got his head stuck in a half-pound tin one day, the scrap, and even the Duke of Wellington ceased to be a jive.  But they liked his independence, and admired his tremendous pluck, so they respected his name when he got one. And his name was Jock. No one bothered about the other puppy's names, they were known as Billy's Pup, Jimmy's Pup, Old Joe's Darling, Yellow Jack, and Bandy-legged Sue. But they seemed to think that this little chap had earned his name, fighting his way without anybody's help, and with everything against him, so they gave up all the nicknames and spoke of him as Jock. Jock got such a good advertisement by his fight with the table leg, that everyone took notice of him now, and remarked about what he did. And as he was only a very young puppy, they teased him, fed him, pitted him, and did their best to spoil him. He was so young that it didn't seem to matter, but I think if he had not been a really good dog at heart, he would have been quite spoiled. He soon began to grow and fill out, and it was then that he taught the other puppies to leave him alone. If they had not interfered with him, he might perhaps have left them alone, as it was not his nature to interfere with others. But the trouble was, they had bullied him so much while he was weak and helpless, that he got used to the idea of fighting for everything. It is probably the best thing that could have happened to Jock, that as a puppy he was small and weak, but full of pluck, it compelled him to learn how to fight. It made him clever, cool and careful, for he could not afford to make mistakes. When he fought, he meant business. He went for a good spot, bit hard, and hung on for all he was worth. Then, as the enemy began to slacken, he would start vigorously worrying and shaking. I often saw him shake himself off his feet, because the thing he was fighting was too heavy for him. The day Jock fought the two big puppies, one after the other, for his bone, and beat them off, was the day of his independence. We all saw the tussle, and cheered the little chap. And then for one whole day he had peace. But it was like the pours at low water, before the tide begins to flow the other way. He was so used to being interfered with, that I suppose he did not immediately understand they would never tackle him again. It took a whole day for him to realise this, but as soon as he did understand it, he seemed to make up his mind that now his turn had come. And he went for the first puppy he saw with the bone. He walked up slowly and carefully, and began to make a circle round him. When he got about half way round, the puppy took up the bone and trotted off. But Jock headed him off at once. And began to walk towards him, very slowly and stiffly. The other puppy stood quite still for a moment, and then Jock's fierce determined look was too much for him. He dropped the bone and bolted.  So when Jock had taken what he could off this one, he started on another hunt. A few yards away Billy's pup was having a glorious time, struggling with a big bone and growling all the while as if he wanted to let the world know that it was as much as anyone's life was worth to come near him. None of us thought Jock would tackle him, as Billy's pup was still a long way the biggest and strongest of the puppies, and always ready to bully the others. Jock was about three or four yards away when he caught sight of Billy's pup, and for about a minute he stood still and quietly watched. At first he seemed surprised, and then interested, and then gradually he stiffened up all over in that funny way of his, and when the hair on his shoulders was all on end, and his ears and tail were properly up, he moved forward very deliberately. In this fashion he made a circle round Billy's pup, keeping about two feet away from him, walking infinitely slowly and glaring steadily at the enemy out of the corner of his eyes, and while he was doing this the other fellow was tearing away at his bone, growling furiously and glaring sideways at Jock. When the circle was finished they stood once more face to face, and then after a short pause Jock began to move in closer, but more slowly even than before. Billy's pup did not like this. It was beginning to look serious. He could not keep on eating and at the same time watch Jock. Moreover there was such a very unpleasant, wicked look about Jock, and he moved so steadily and silently forward that anyone would feel a bit creepy and nervous. So he put his paw on the bone, and let out a string of snarly barks. With his ears flat on his neck and his tail rather low down. But Jock still came on, a little more carefully and slowly perhaps, but just as steadily as ever.  Perhaps he did this to make sure the bone was still there, or perhaps to show his contempt when he thought Jock was going off. Whatever the reason was it was a mistake, for as he turned his head away Jock flew at him, got a good mouthful of ear, and in no time they were rolling and struggling in the dust. Jock's little grunts barely audible in the noise made by the other one. Billy's pup was big and strong, and he was not a coward, but Jock was worrying his ear vigorously and he could not find anything to bite in return. In less than a minute he began to howl, and was making frantic efforts to get away. Then Jock let go the ear and tackled the bone. After that he had no more puppy fights. As soon as any one of the others saw Jock begin to walk slowly and carefully towards him, he seemed to suddenly get tired of his bone and moved off. Most dogs, like most people, when their hearts fail them will try to hide the truth from one another and make some sort of effort or pretense to keep their dignity or self-respect or the good opinion of others. You may see it all any day in the street, when dogs meet and stop to size each other up. As a rule the perfectly shameless cowards are found in the two extreme classes, the outcasts, those whose spirits are broken by all the world being against them, and the pampered darlings, who never have to do anything for themselves. Many dogs who are clearly anxious to get out of fighting will make a pretense of bravery at the time or at least cover up their cowardice with a wait till I catch you next time, err, as soon as they are at a safe distance. Day after day at the outspans the puppies went through every stage of the business, to our constant amusement and to my unconcealed pride, for Jock was henceforth cock of the walk. If they saw him some distance off, moving towards them or even staring hard and with his ears and tail up, the retreat would be made with a gloomy and dignified air, sometimes even with growls, just loud enough to please themselves without provoking him. If he was fairly close up when spotted, they wasted no time in putting on airs but trotted off promptly, but sometimes they would be too busy to notice anything, until a growl or a rustle in the grass close behind gave warning, and it was always followed by a jump and a shameless scuttle, very often accompanied by a strangled sort of yowling yelp, just as if he had already got them by the ear or throat. Some of them became so nervous that he could not resist playing practical jokes on them, making sudden strange noises, imitating Jock's growls, tossing bits of bark at them or touching them from behind with a stick, while they were completely occupied with their burns, for the fun of seeing the stampede and hearing the sudden howls of surprise and fright. One by one the other puppies were taken away by their new masters, and before Jock was three months old, he and Jess were the only dogs with the wagons. Then he went to school, and like all schoolboys, learned some things very quickly, the things that he liked, and some things he learned very slowly, and hated them just as a boy hates extra work in playtime. When I poked a bat with a stick in the banks of the dongles to turn out myson field rats for him, or when I hid a partridge or a hare and made him find it, he was as happy as could be. But when I made him lie down, and watch my gun or coat while I pretended to go off and leave him, he did not like it, and as for his lessons in manners, well, he simply hated them. There are some things which a dog in that sort of life simply must learn or you cannot keep him, and the first of these is not to steal. Every puppy will help himself until he's taught not to, and your dog lives with you and can get at everything. At the outspans, the grub box is put on the ground, open for each man to help himself. If you make a stew or roast the leg of a buck, the big three-legged pot is put down handy and left there. If you're lucky enough to have some tinned batter or condensed milk, the tins are opened and stood on the ground, and if you have a dog thief in the camp, nothing is safe. There was a dog with us once, a year or two later, who was the worst thief I ever knew. He was a one-eyed pointer with feet like a ducks, and his name was Snarly Yowl. He looked the most foolish and most innocent dog in the world, and was so timid that if you stumbled as you passed him, he would instantly start howling and run for the horizon. The first bad experience I had on Snarly was on one of the little hunting trips which we sometimes made in those days, away from the wagons. We travelled light on those occasions, and, except for some tea and very little flour and salt, took no food. We lived on what we shot, and of course kept Hunter's Pot. Hunter's Pot is a perpetual stew. You make one stew and keep it going as long as necessary, maintaining a full pot by adding to it as fast as you take any out. Scraps of everything go in. Any kind of meat, bird, pig, hair, and if you have such luxuries as onions or potatoes, so much the better. Then, to make the soup strong, the big burns are added, the old ones being fished out every day and replaced by a fresh lot. When allowed to cool, it sets like brawn, and a hungry Hunter wants nothing better. We had had a good feed the first night of the trip, and had then filled the pot up, leaving it to simmer as long as the fire lasted, expecting to have cold pie set in jelly, but without the pie crust, for early breakfast next morning before going off for the day. But to our amazement, in the morning the pot was empty. There were some strange caffers, camp followers, hanging onto our trail for what they could pick up, and we suspected them. There was a great row, but the boys denied having touched the pot, and we could prove nothing. That night we made the fire close to our sleeping place, and moved the caffers further away, but next morning the pot was again empty, cleaned and polished as if it had been washed out. While we, speechless with astonishment and anger, were wondering who the thief was, and what we should do with him, one of the hunting boys came up, and pointed to the prince of a dog's feet in the soft white ashes of the dead fire. There was only one word, snolly yow. The thief was lying fast asleep, comfortably curled up on his master's clothes. There could be no mistake about those big-splared footprints, and in about two minutes, snolly yow was getting a first-class hammering, with his head tied inside the three-legged pot for a lesson. After that he was kept tied up at night, but snolly yow was passed curing. We had practically nothing to eat but what we shot, and nothing to drink but bush tea, that is, tea made from a certain wild shrub with a very strong scent. It is not nice, but you drink it when you cannot get anything else. We could not afford luxuries then, but two days before Ted's birthday he sent a runner off to Kamati Drift, and bought a small tin of ground coffee and a tin of condensed milk for his birthday treat. It was to be a real feast that day. So he cut the top of the tin instead of punching two holes and blowing the milk out, as we usually did in order to economise, and kept out the dust and insects. What we could not use in the coffee that day we were going to spread on our dough-boys instead of butter and jam. It was to be a real feast. The five of us sat down in a circle and began on our hunter's pot, saving the good things for last. While we were busy on the stew there came a pathetic heart-breaking yow from snolly yow, and we looked round, just in time to see him, his tail tucked between his legs and his head high in the air, bolting off into the bush as hard as he could lay legs to the ground, with the milk tin stuck firmly onto his nose. The greedy thief, in trying to get the last scrap out, had dug his nose and topped Joe too far in, and the jagged edges of the tin had gripped him, and the last we saw of our birthday treat was the tin flashing in the sunlight on snolly's nose as he tore away howling into the bush. Snolly yow came to a bad end. His master shot him as he was running off with a ham. He was a full-grown dog when he came to our camp, and too old to learn principles and good manners. Dogs are like people. What they learn when they are young, whether of good or evil, is not riddly forgotten. I began early with jock, and, remembering what Rocky had said, tried to help him. It is little use punishing a dog for stealing if you take no trouble about feeding him. That is very rough on the dog. He has to find out slowly, and by himself, what he may take, and what he may not. Sometimes he leaves what he was meant to take and goes hungry, and sometimes takes what was not intended for him, and gets a thrashing. That is not fair. You cannot expect to have a good dog, and one that will understand you if you treat him in that way. Some men teach their dogs not to take food from anyone but themselves. One day, when we were walking about training dogs, Ted told one of the others to open Jess's mouth and put a piece of meat in it, he undertaking not to say a word, and not even to look at her. The meat was put in her mouth, and her jaws were shut tight on it. But the instant she was free, she cropped it, walked round to the other side of Ted, and sat close up to him. He waited for a minute or so, and, without so much as a glance at her, said quietly, All right! She was back again in a second, and with one hungry bite, bolted the lump of meat. I taught Jock not to touch food in the camp, until he was told to take it. The lesson began when he got his saucer of porridge in the morning, and he must have thought it cruel to have that put in front of him, and then to behold back or tapped with a finger on the nose each time he tried to dive into it. At first he struggled and fought to get at it. Then he tried to back away and dod round the other side. Then he became dazed, and thinking it was not for him at all, wanted to walk off and have nothing to do with it. In a few days, however, I got him to lie still, and take it only when I patted him, and pushed him towards it. And in a very little time he got on so well, that I could put his food down without saying anything, and let him wait for permission. He would lie down, with his head on his paws, and his nose right up against the saucer, so as to lose no time when the order came. But he would not touch it until he heard, take it. He never moved his head, but his little, brown, dark eyes, full of childlike eagerness, used to be turned up sideways and fixed on mine. I believe he watched my lips. He was so quick to obey the order when it came. When he grew up and had learned his lessons, there was no need for these exercises. He got to understand me so well, that if I nodded or moved my hand in a way that meant all right, he would go ahead. By that time he was dignified and patient, and it was only in his puppyhood that he used to crotch up close to his food and trembled with impatience and excitement. There was one lesson that he hated most of all. I used to balance a piece of meat on his nose, and make him keep it there until the word to take it came. Time after time he would close his eyes, as if the sight of the meat was more than he could bear, and his mouth would water so from the savoury smell that long streels of dribble would hang down on either side. It seems unnecessary, and even cruel to tantalise a dog that way, but it was not. It was education, and it was true kindness. I taught him to understand his master and to be obedient, patient and observant. It taught him not to steal. It saved him from much sickness and perhaps death, by teaching him not to feed on anything he could find. It taught him manners and made it possible for him to live with his master and be treated like a friend. Good feeding, good care, and plenty of exercise soon began to make a great change in jock. He ceased to look like a beetle, grew bigger everywhere, not only in one part as he had done at first. His neck grew thick and strong, and his legs straightened up and filled out with muscle. The others, seeing him every day, were slow to notice these things, but my sand had been changed into gold long ago. And they always said, I could not see anything wrong in jock. There was one other change which came more slowly, and seemed to me much more wonderful. After his morning feed, if there was nothing to do, he used to go to sleep in some shady's place, and I remember well one day watching him as he lay. His bit of shade had moved away and left him in the bright sunshine, and as he breathed and his ribs rose and fell, the tips of the hairs on his side and back caught the sunlight and shone like polished gold, and the wavy dark lines seemed more distinct and darker, but still very soft. In fact, I was astonished to see that in a certain light, jock looked quite handsome. That was the first time I noticed the change in colour, and it made me remember two things. The first time was what the other fellows had said the day Billy gave up his puppy. You can't tell how a puppy will turn out, even his colour changes. And the second was a remark made by an old hunter, who had offered to buy jock, the real meaning of which I did not understand at the time. The best dog I ever owned was a golden brindle, said the old man thoughtfully, after I had laughed at the idea of selling my dog. I had got so used to thinking that he was only a faded, wishy-washy addition of Jess, that the idea of his colour changing did not occur to me then, and I never suspected that the old man could see how he would turn out, but the touch of sunlight opened my eyes that day, and after that, whenever I looked at jock, the words golden brindle came back to my mind, and I pictured him as he was going to be, and as he really did grow up, having a coat like burnish gold with soft, dark, wavy brindles in it, and that snow-white V on his chest. Joch had many things to learn beside the lessons he got from me, the lessons of experience which nobody could teach him. When he was six months old, just old enough, if he had lived in a town to chase a cat and make a noise, he knew many things that respectable puppies of twice his age who stay at home never get a chance of learning. On trick, there were always new places to see, new roads to travel, and new things to examine, tackle or avoid. He learnt something fresh almost every day. He learnt, for instance, that although it was shady and cool under the wagon, it was not good enough to lie in the wheel track, not even for the pleasure of feeling the cool tyre against your back or head as you slipped. And he knew that, because one day he had done it, and the wheel had gone over his foot, and it might just as easily have been his back or head. Fortunately, the sound was soft, and his foot was not crushed, but he was very lame for some days and had to travel on the wagon. He learned a good deal from Jess, among other things, that it was not necessary to poke his nose up against a snake in order to find out what it was. He knew that Jess would fight anything, and when, one day, he saw her hair go up and watched her share of the path widen to the grass, he did the same. And then, when we had shot the snake, both he and Jess came up very, very cautiously, and sniffed at it with every hair on their bodies standing up. He found out for himself that it was not a good idea to turn a scorpion over with his paw.  He was a very sick dog for some days, but after that, whenever he saw a thing that he did not understand, he would watch it very carefully from a little way off, and notice what it did and what it looked like before trying experiments.  That is how he knew that wolves or lions were about, and that they were dangerous when he heard or sent them, although he had never seen, sent or heard one before to know what sort of animal it might be. You may well wonder how he could tell whether the scent or the cry belonged to a wolf which he must avoid, or to a buck which he must hunt, when he had never seen either a wolf or a buck at the time, but he did know, and he also knew that no dog could safely go outside the ring of the campfires when wolf or lion was about. I have known many town-bred dogs that could send them just as well as Jess or Jock could, but having no instinct of danger, they went out to see what it was, and of course they never came back. I used to take Jock with me everywhere so that he could learn everything that a hunting dog ought to know, and above all things to learn that he was my dog, and to understand all that I wanted to tell him. So while he was still a puppy, whenever he stopped to sniff at something new or look at something strange, I would show him what it was, but if he stayed behind to explore while I moved on, or if he fell asleep and did not hear me get up from where I had sat down to rest, or went off the track on his own account, I used to hide away from him on top of a rock, or up a tree, and let him hunt about until he found me. At first he used to be quite excited when he missed me, but after a little time he got to know what to do, and would sniff along the ground and canter away after me, always finding me quite easily. Even if I climbed a tree to hide from him, he would follow my track to the foot of the tree, sniff up the trunk as far as he could reach, standing up against it, and then peer up into the branches. If he could not see me from one place, he would try another, always with his head tilted a bit on one side. He never barked at these times, but as soon as he saw me his ears would drop, his mouth open wide, and the red tongue lolling out, and the stump of a tail would twiggle away to show how pleased he was.  He hardly ever barked. When he did, I knew there was something worth looking at. Jock was not a quarrelsome dog, and he was quick to learn, and very obedient, but in one connection I had great difficulty with him for quite a little time. He had a sort of private war with the fowls, and it was due to the same cause as his war with the other puppies. They interfered with him. Now everyone knows what a foul is like. It is impudent, inquisitive, selfish, always looking for something to eat, and has no principle A friend of mine once told me a story about a dog of his, and the trouble he had with fowls. Several of us had been discussing the characters of dogs, and the different emotions they feel and manage to express, and the kind of things they seem to think about. Everyone knows that a dog can feel angry, frightened, pleased, and disappointed. Anyone who knows dogs will tell you that they can also feel anxious, hopeful, nervous, inquisitive, surprised, ashamed, and disappointed.  We have told many stories illustrating this when my friend asked the question, have dogs a sense of humour?  On both occasions, Jock clearly felt that he had made himself look ridiculous, but he was very far from looking amused. The question was, is a dog capable of sufficient thinking to appreciate a simple joke, and is it possible for a dog to feel amused? If Jess had seen Jock bursting to fight the table leg, would she have seen the joke? Well, I certainly did not think so, but as he said, he was quite certain some dogs have a sense of humour, and he had had proof of it. He told the story very gravely, but I really do not even now know whether he… Well, here it is. He had once owned a savage old watchdog, whose box stood in the backyard where he was kept chained up all day. He used to be fed once a day, in the mornings, and the great plague of his life was the fouls. They ran loose in the yard and picked up food all day, besides getting a really good feeling of grain morning and evening. Possibly the knowledge of this made the old dog particularly angry, when they would come round by ones or twos or dozens, trying to steal part of his one meal. Anyhow, he hated them, and whenever he got the chance, killed them. The old fouls learned to keep out of his way, and never ventured within his reach unless they were quite sure that he was asleep, or lying in his kennel where he could not see them. But there were always new fouls coming, or young ones growing up. And so the war went on. One Sunday morning my friend was enjoying a smoke on his back stoop, when feeding time came round. The cook took the dog's food to him in a high three-legged pot, and my friend, seeing the fouls begin to gather round and wishing to let the old dog have his meal in peace, told the cook to give the fouls a good feed in another part of the yard to draw them off. So the old fellow polished off his food and licked the pot clean, leaving not a drop or a speck behind. But fouls are very greedy.  The old dog, feeling pretty satisfied with life, picked out a sandy spot in the sunshine, threw himself down full stretch on his side, and promptly went to sleep, at peace with all the world. Immediately he did this, outstepped a long-legged athletic-looking young cockerel, and began to advance against the enemy. As he got nearer, he slowed down and looked first with one eye, and then with the other, so as to make sure that all was safe, and several times he paused with one foot poised high, before deciding to take the next step. My friend was greatly amused to see all the trouble that the foul was taking to get up to the empty pot, and, for the fun of giving the conceited young cockerel a fright, threw a pebble at him. He was so nervous that when the pebble dropped near him he gave one great bound and tore off, flapping and screaming down the yard, as if he thought the old dog was after him. But the old fellow himself was startled out of his sleep, and raised his head to see what the roar was about. But as nothing more happened, he lay down again, and the cockerel, finding also that it was a false alarm, turned back, not a bit ashamed for another try. The cockerel had not seen the old dog lift his head. My friend had, and when he looked again, he saw that although the underneath eye half buried in the sand was shut, the top eye was open, and was steadily watching the cockerel, as he came nearer and nearer to the pot. My friend sat dead still, expecting a rush and another fluttering scramble. At last the cockerel took the final step, grained his neck to its utmost, and peered down into the empty pot. The old dog gave two gentle pats with his tail in the sand, and closing his eye went to sleep again. Jock had the same sort of trouble. The fouls tried to steal his food, and he would not stand it. His way of dealing with them was not good for their health. Before I could teach him not to kill, and before the fouls would learn not to steal, he had finished half a dozen of them, one after another, in just one bite and a shake. He would growl very low as they came up, and, without lifting his head from the plate, watched them with his little eyes turning from soft brown to shiny black. And when they came too near and tried to snatch just one mouthful, well, one jump, one shake, and it was all over. In the end he learned to tumble them over and scare their wits out without hurting them, and they learned to give him a very wide berth. I used always to keep some fouls with the wagons, partly to have fresh meat if we ran out of game, but mainly to have fresh eggs, which were a very great treat, and as a rule it was only when a hen turned obstinate and would not lay that we ate her. I used to have one old rooster whose name was Pazulu, and six or eight hens. The hens changed from time to time as we ate them, but Pazulu remained. The foul coop was carried on top of everything else, and it was always left open so that the fouls could go in and out as they liked. In the very beginning of all, of course, the fouls were shut in and fed in the coop for a day or two to teach them where their home was, but it was surprising how quickly a foul will learn and how it observes things. For instance, the moving of the coop from one wagon to another is not a thing one would expect the fouls to notice. All the wagons being so much alike and having no regular order at the outspans, but they did notice it, and at once. They would first get onto the wagon on which the coop had been, and look about in a puzzled, lost kind of way, then walk all over the load, apparently searching for it, with heads cocked this way and that, as if a great big coop was a thing that might have been mislaid somewhere. Then one after another would jerk out short cackles of protest, indignation and astonishment, and generally make no end of fuss. It was only when old Pazulu led the way and perched on the coop itself and crowed and called to him that they would get up onto the other wagon. Pazulu got his name by accident, in fact by a misunderstanding. It is a Zulu word meaning up or on top, and when the fouls first joined the wagons and were allowed to wander about at the outspan places, the boys would drive them up when it was time to trick again, by cracking their big whips and shouting, Pazulu! In a few days no driving or whip cracking was necessary. One of the boys would shout, Pazulu! Three or four times and they would all come in, and one by one fly and scramble up to the coop. One day after we had got a new lot of hints, a stranger happened to witness the performance. Old Pazulu was the only one who knew what was meant, and being a terribly fussy nervous old gentleman, came tearing out of the bush making a lot of noise and scrambled hastily onto the wagon. The stranger, hearing the boys called Pazulu, and seeing him hurry up so promptly remarked, how well he knows his name. So we called him Pazulu after that. Whenever we got new fouls, Pazulu became as distracted as a nervous man with a large family, trying to find seats in an excursion train. As soon as he saw the oxen being brought up, and before anyone had called for the fouls, he would begin fussing and fuming, trying all sorts of dodgers to get the hens up to the wagons. He would crow and clack-clack or kip-kip. He would go a few yards towards the wagons and scratch in the ground, pretending to have found something good, and invite them to come and share it. He would get on the distal boom and crow and flap his wings loudly, and finally he would mount on top of the coop and make all sorts of signals to the hens, who took not the least notice of him. As the in-spanning went on, he would get more and more excited. Down he would come again, not flying off, but hopping from ledge to ledge to show them the easy way, and once more on the ground, he would scrape and pick and cluck to attract them, and the whole game would be played over again and again. So even with new fouls, we had very little trouble, as old Pazulu did most of the teaching. But sometimes Pazulu himself was caught napping to the high delight of the boys. He was so nervous and so fussy that they thought it great fun to play tricks on him, and pretend to go off and leave him behind. It was not easy to do this because, as I say, he did not wait to be called, but got ready the minute he saw the oxen coming up. He was like those fussy people who drive everyone else crazy, and waste a lot of time by always being half an hour early, and then annoy you by boasting that they have never missed a train in their lives. But there was one way in which Pazulu used to get caught. Just as he knew that in spanning meant starting, so too he knew that outspanning meant stopping, and whenever the wagon stopped, even for a few minutes, out would pop his head, just like the fussy red-faced father of the big family looking out to see if it was their station or an accident on the line. Right and left he would look, giving excited, inquisitive clucks from time to time, and if they did not start in another minute or two, he would get right out, and walk anxiously to the edge of the load, and have another good look around, as the nervous old gentleman gets half out, and then right out to look for the guard, but will not let go the handle of the door for fear of being left. Unless he saw the boys outspanning, he would not get off, and if one of the hens ventured out, he would rush back at her in a great state and try to bustle her back into the coop. But often it happens while trekking that something goes wrong with the gear. A yoke's key or a neck-strock breaks, or an ox will not pull kindly, or pulls too hard where he is, and you want to change his place, and in that way it comes about that sometimes you have to outspan one or two or even more oxen in the middle of a trek. That is how Pazulu used to get caught. The minute he saw outspanning begin, he would nip off with all the hens following him, and wonder about looking for food, chasing locusts or grasshoppers, and making dots of beetles and all sorts of dainties, very much interested in his job, and wandering further from the wagons at every step. The boys would watch him, and as soon as they were fixed up again, would start off without a word of warning to Pazulu. Then there was a scene. At the first sound of the wagon-wheels moving, he would look up from where he was, or walk briskly out into the open, or get onto an anteep to see what was up, and when, to his horror, he saw the wagon actually going without him, he simply screamed, open-mouthed, and tore along with wings outstretched, the old gentleman shouting, stop the train, stop the train, with his family struggling along behind him. It never took him long to catch up and scramble on, but even then he was not a bit less excited. He was perfectly hysterical, and his big red comb seemed to get quite purple, as if it might be going to have apoplexy, and he twitched and joked about so that it flapped first over one eye, and then over the other. This was the boy's practical joke, which they played on him whenever they could. That was old Pazulu. Pazulu the first. He was thick in the body, all chest and tail, short in the legs, and had enormous spurs, and his big comb made him look so red in the face that one could not help thinking he was too fond of his dinner. In some old Christmas number, we came across a coloured caricature of a militia colonel in full uniform, and for quite a long time it remained tacked on the coop with Pazulu written on it. Pazulu the Great, who was Pazulu the second, was not like that. He was a game-cock, all muscle and no frills, with a very resolute manner and a real love of his proficient. He was a bit like Jock in some things, and that is why I fancy perhaps Jock and he were friends in a kind of way. But Jock could not get on with the others. They were constantly changing. New ones who had to be taught manners were always coming, so he just lumped them together and hated files. He taught the manners, but they taught him something too, at any rate one of them did, and one of the biggest surprises and best lessons Jock ever had was given him by a hen while he was still a growing up puppy. He was beginning to fancy that he knew a good deal, and like most young dogs was very inquisitive and wanted to know everything and at once. At that time he was very keen on hunting mice, rats and bush grills, and had even fought and killed a meerkat after the pluck little ricky-ticky had bitten him rather badly through the lip, and he was still much inclined to poke his nose in or rush onto things instead of sniffing roundabout first. However, he had learned to be careful, and an old hen helped to teach him. The hens usually laid their eggs in the coop because it was their home, but sometimes they would make nests in the bush at the outspan places. One of the hens had done this, and the bush she had chosen was very low and dense. No one saw the hen make the nest, and no one saw her sitting on it, for the sunshine was so bright everywhere else and the shade of the bush so dark that it was impossible to see anything there, but while we were at breakfast Jock, who was bustling about everywhere as a puppy will, must have centred the hen or have seen this brown thing in the dark shady hole. The hen was sitting with the head sunk down right into her chest so that he could not see her head, eyes or beak, just a sort of brown lump.  He lifted his feet so slowly and so softly that you could count five between each step. We were all greatly amused and thought he was pointing a mouse or a locust, and we watched him. He crept up like a boy showing off until he was only six inches from the object, giving occasional cautious glances back at us to attract attention. Just as he got to the hole, the hen led out a vicious peck on the top of his nose and at the same time flapped over his head, screaming and cackling for dear life. It was also sudden and so surprising that she was gone before he could think of making a graviter, and when he heard our shouts of laughter he looked as foolish as if he understood all about it. End of Chapter 5 Chapter 6 of Jock of the Bushveld This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Jock of the Bushveld by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick Chapter 6 The First Hunt Jock's first experience in hunting was on the Crocodile River, not far from the spot where long afterwards we had a great fight with the old crocodile. In the summer when the heavy rains flood the country, the river runs bank high, hiding everything, reeds, rocks, islands and stunted trees. In some places silent and oily, like a huge, gorged snake, in others foaming and turbulent as an angry monster. In the rainless winter, when the water is low and clear, the scene is not so grand, but is quiet, peaceful and much more beautiful. There is an infinite variety in it then, the river sometimes winding along in one deep channel, but more often forking out into two or three streams in the broad bed. The loops and lacings of the divided water carve out islands and spaces of all shapes and sizes. Banks of clean white sand or of firm damp mud swirled up by the floods, on which tall green reeds with yellow tassel tops shoot up like crops of Capricorn. Look down upon from the flood banks, the silver streaks of water gleam brightly in the sun, and the graceful reeds, bowing and swaying slowly with the gentlest breeze covering their leaf-sheath stems and crested tops, give the appearance of an ever-changing sea of green and gold.  When there is no breeze, the rustle of the reeds is hashed, and the only constant sound is the ever-varying voice of the water, lapping, gurgling, chattering, murmuring, as it works its way along the rocky channels, sometimes near and loud, sometimes faint in distance, and sometimes over long sandy reaches, there is no sound at all. Get up on some vantage point upon a high bank and look down there one day, in the winter of the tropics as the heat and hush of noon approach, and it'll seem indeed a scene of peace and beauty, a place to rest and dream, where there is neither stir nor sound. Then, as you sit silently watching and thinking, where all the world is so infinitely still, you'll notice that one read down amongst all those countless thousands is moving. It bows slowly and gracefully a certain distance, and then with a quivering, shuddering motion, straightens itself still more slowly and with evident difficulty, until at last it stands upright again like the rest, but still a quiver, while they do not move a leaf. Just as you are beginning to wonder what the reason is, the read bows slowly again and again struggles back, and so it goes on as regularly as the swing of a pendulum. Then you know that down at the roots where you cannot see it, the water is flowing silently and that something attached to this read is dragging in the stream and pulling it over and swinging back to do it again each time the read lifts it free, a perpetual seesaw. You are glad to find the reason, because it looked a little uncanny, but the behaviour of that one read has stopped your dreaming and made you look about more carefully. Then you find that, although the reads appear as still as the rocks, there is hardly a spot where, if you watch for a few minutes, you will not see something moving. A tiny field mass climbing one read will swear it over. A river-rat gnawing at the roots will make it shiver and rustle.  All feeling that it is a home of peace, a place to rest and dream leaves you. You are wondering what goes on down below the green and gold where you can see nothing, and when your eye catches a bigger, slower, continuous movement in another place, and for twenty yards from the bank to the stream you see the tops of the read gently parting and closing again, as something down below works its way along without the faintest sound.  You must get up and do something. There is always good shooting along the rivers in a country where water is scarce. Partridges, bush pheasants and stem-bucks were plentiful along the banks and among the thorns, reeds themselves with the herms of thousands of guinea-file, and you could also count on the day-car and reed-buck as almost a certainty there. If this were all it would be like shooting a well-stuck cover, but it is not only man that is on the watchful game at the drinking places. The beasts of prey, lions, tigers, hyenas, wild dogs and jackals and lastly pythons and crocodiles know that the game must come to water, and they lie and wait near the tracks of the places. That is what makes the mystery and charm of the reeds.  The lions and tigers had deserted the country near the main drifts and followed the big game into more peaceful parts. But the reeds were still a favourite shelter and resting place of the crocodiles, and there were any number of them left. There is nothing that one comes across in hunting more horrible and loathsome than the crocodile. Nothing that rouses the feeling of horror nothing that so surely and quickly leaves the sensation of creeps in the back as the noiseless apparition of one in the water where you least expected anything, or the discovery of one silently and intently watching you with his head resting flat on a sandpit, the thing that you had seen half a dozen times before and mistaken for a small rock. Many things are hunted in the bush felt, but only the crocodile is hated. There is always the feeling of horror that this hideous, cowardly, cruel thing, the enemy of man and beast alike, with its look of a cunning smile in the greeny glassy eyes and great wide mouth will mercilessly drag you down, down, down to the bottom of some deep still pool and hold you there till you drown. Utterly helpless yourself to escape or fight, you cannot even call and if you could, no one would help you there. It is all done in silence, a few bubbles come up where a man went down and that is the end of it. We all knew about the crocodiles and were prepared for them, but the sport was good and when you are fresh at a game and get interested in a hunt it is not very easy to remember all the things you have been warned about and the precautions you were told to take. It was on the first day at the river that one of our party, who was not a very old-hand at hunting, came in wet and muddy and told us how a crocodile had scared the wits out of him. He had gone out after a guinea file he said, but as he had no dog to send in and flush them the birds simply played with him. They would not rise but kept running on the reeds a little way in front of him just out of sight. He could hear them quite distinctly and thinking to steal a march on them took of his boots and got onto the rocks. Stepping barefooted from rock to rock where the reeds were thin he made no noise at all and got so close up that he could hear the little whispery chink-chink-chink that they gave when near danger. The only chance of getting a shot at them was to mount one of the big rocks from which he could see down into the reeds and he worked his way along the mud bank towards one. A couple more steps from the mud bank onto a low black rock would take him to the big one. Without taking his eyes off the reeds where the guinea file were he stepped cautiously out onto the low black rock and in an instant was swept of his feet, tossed and over into the mud and reeds and there was a noise of furious rushing and crashing as if a troop of elephants were stampeding through the reeds. He had stepped on the back of a sleeping crocodile. No doubt it was every bit as frightened as he was. There was much laughter over this and the breathless earnestness with which he told the story but there was also a good deal of chaff for it seemed to be generally accepted that you are not bound to believe all hunting stories and Jim and his circus crocodile became the joke of the camp. We were all spending a couple of days on the river bank to make the most of good water and grazing and all through the day someone or other would be out pottering about among the reeds, gun in hand, to keep the pot full and have some fun and although we laughed and chaffed about Jim's experience I fancy we were all very much on the lookout for rocks that look like crocs and crocs that look like rocks. One of the most difficult lessons that a beginner has to keep cool.  The great silent bush is so lonely the strain of being on the lookout all the time is so great the uncertainty as to what may start up anything from a partridge to a lion is so trying that the beginner is wound up like an alarm clock and goes off at the first touch.  On a later trip we had with us a man who was out for the first time and when we came upon a troop of kudu he started yelling war whooping and swearing at them chasing them on foot and waving his rifle over his head when we asked him why he who was nearest to them had not fired a shot all he could say was that he never remembered his rifle or anything else until they were gone these experiences had been mine some of them many times in spite of rocky's example and advice and they were always followed by a fresh stock of good resolutions. I had started out this day with the same old determination to keep cool but once into the reeds Jim's account of how he had stepped on a crocodile put all other thoughts out of my mind and most of my attention was given to examining suspicious looking rocks as we stole silently and quietly along. Jock was with me as usual I always took him out even then not for hunting because he was too young but in order to train him he was still only a puppy about six months old as well as I remember and had never tackled or even followed a wounded buck so it was impossible to say what he would do he had seen me shoot a couple and had wanted to worry them as they fell but that was all he was quite obedient and kept his place behind me and although he trembled with excitement when he saw or heard anything he never rushed in or moved ahead of me without permission the guinea fowl tormented him that day he could scent and hear them and was constantly making little runs forward half crouching with his nose back and tail dead level and his one ear full cocked and the other half up for about half an hour we went on in this way there was plenty of fresh daeke spore to show us that we were in a likely place one spore in particular being so fresh in the mud that it seemed only a few minutes old we were following this one very eagerly but very cautiously and evidently Jock agreed with me that the daeke must be near for he took no more any file and I for my part forgot all about crocodiles and suspicious looking rocks there was at that moment only one thing in the world for me and that was the daeke we crept along noiselessly in and out of the reeds round rocks and mud holes across small stretches of firm mud and soft sand so silently that nothing could have heard us and finally we came to a very big rock with the daeke spore fresher than ever going close rounded downstream the rock was a long sloping one polished smooth by the floods and very slippery to walk on I climbed it in dead silence peering down into the reeds and expecting every moment to see the daeke the slope up which we crept was long and easy but that on the downstream side was much steeper I crawled up to the top on hands and knees and raising myself slowly looked carefully about but no daeke could be seen yet Jock was sniffing and trembling more than ever and it was quite clear that he thought we were very close up seeing nothing in front or on either side I stood right up and turned to look back the way we had come to examine the reeds on that side in doing so a few grains of grit crunched under my foot and instantly there was a rush in the reeds behind me I jumped round to face it believing that the crocodile was grabbing at me from behind and on the polished surface of the rock my feet slipped and shot from under me both bare elbows bumped hard on the rock joking the rifle out of my hands and I was launched like a torpedo right into the mass of swaying reeds when you think you are tumbling onto a crocodile there is only one thing you want to do get out as soon as possible how long it took to reach the top of the rock again? Goodliss only knows it seemed like a lifetime but the fact is I was out of those reeds and up that rock in time to see the daeke as it broke out of the reeds raced up the bank and disappeared into the bush with Doc tearing after it as hard as ever he could go one call stopped him and he came back to me looking very crestfallen and guilty no doubt thinking that he had behaved badly and disgraced himself but he was not to blame at all he had known all along the daeke was there having no distracting fancies about crocodiles and when he saw it dash off and his master instantly jumped in after it he must have thought that the hunt had last began and that he was expected to help after all that drawn excitement there was not much use in trying for anything more in the reeds and indeed I had had quite enough of them for one afternoon so we wandered along the upper banks in the hope of finding something where there were no crocodiles and it was not long before we were interested in something else and able to forget all about the daeke before we had been walking many minutes Doc raised his head and ears and then went into a half crouching attitude and made little run forward I looked promptly in the direction he was pointing and about 200 yards away saw a stem buck standing in the shade of a mimosa bush feeding on the buffalo grass it was so small and in such bad light that the shot was too difficult for me at that distance and I called along behind bushes and heaps and trees until we were close enough for anything the ground was soft and sandy and we could get along easily enough without making any noise but all the time whilst thinking how lucky it was to be on the ground so soft for the hands and knees and so easy to move on without being heard something else was happening with eyes fixed on the buck I did not notice that in calling along on all fours the muzzle of the rifle dipped regularly into the sand picking up a little in the barrel each time there was not enough to burst the rifle but the effect was surprising following on a painfully careful aim there was a deafening report that made my head real and buzz the kick of the rifle on the shoulder and cheek left me blue for days and when my eyes were clear enough to see anything the stem buck had disappeared I was too disgusted to move and sat in the sand rubbing my shoulders and thanking my stars the rifle had not burst there was plenty to think about to be sure and no hurry to do anything else for the noise of the shot must have startled every living thing for a mile round it is not easy to tell the direction from which the report comes when you are near a river or in broken country or patchy bush and it is not an uncommon thing to find that a shot which has frightened one animal away from you has startled another and driven it towards you and that is what happened in this case as I sat in the shade of the thorns with the loaded rifle across my knees there was a faint sound of a buck cantering along in the sand I looked up and only about twenty yards from me a daker came to a stop half fronting me there it stood looking back over its shoulder and listening intently evidently thinking that the danger lay behind it it was hardly possible to miss that and as the daker rolled over I dropped my rifle and ran to make sure of it of course it was dead against the rules to leave the rifle behind but it was simply a case of excitement again when the buck rolled over everything else was forgotten I knew the rule perfectly well reloaded once and never part with your gun it was one of Rocky's lessons and only a few weeks before this when art for an afternoon shooting with an old hunter the lesson had been repeated the old man shot a reed buck ram and as it had been facing us and dropped without a kick we both thought it was shot through the brain there was no mark on the head however and although we examined it carefully we failed to find the bullet mark or trace of blood so we put our rifles down to settle the question by skinning the buck after sawing at the neck for half a minute however the old man found his knife too blunt to make an opening and we both hunted about for a stone to sharpen it on and while we were fussicking about in the grass there was a noise behind and looking sharply round we saw the buck scramble to his feet and scamper off before we had time to move the bullet must have touched one of its horns and stunned it my companion was too older hunter to get excited and while I ran for the rifles and wanted to chase the buck on foot he stood quite still gently rubbing the knife on the stone he had picked up looking at me under bushy eyebrows and smiling philosophically he said that's something for you to remember boy it's my belief if you lived forever there'd always be something to learn at this game unfortunately I did not remember it when it would have been useful as I ran forward the day could tumble struggled and rolled over and over and made a dash only to dive head foremost into the sand and somersault over but in a second it was up again and racing off again to trip and plunge forwards onto its chest with its nose outstretched sliding along the soft ground the bullet had struck it in the shoulder and the broken leg was tripping it and bringing it down but in far less time than it takes to tell it the little fellow found out what was wrong and scrambling once more on its feet was off on three legs at a pace far behind Jock remembering the mistake in the reeds kept his place behind and I in the excitement of the moment neither saw nor thought of him until the Daker gaining at every jump looked like vanishing forever then I remembered and with the frantic wave of my hand shouted after him Jock he was gone before my hand was down and faster than I've ever seen him move leaving me plowing through heavy sand far behind past the big bush I saw them again and there the Daker did as wounded games so often do taking advantage of cover it changed direction and turned away for some dense thorns but that suited Jock exactly he took the short cut across to head it off and was close up in a few more strides he caught up to it, raced besides it and made a jump at its throat but the Daker darted away in a fresh direction leaving him yards behind again he was after it and tried the other side but the buck was too quick again he missed and overshot the mark in his jump he was in such deadly earnestly seemed to turn in the air to get back again and once more he was close up so close that the flying heels of the buck seemed to pass each side of his ears then he made his spring from behind catching the Daker high up on one hind leg and the two rolled over together kicking and struggling in a cloud of dust time after time the Daker got onto its feet trying to get him with its horns or to break away again but Jock although swung off his feet and rolled on did not let go of his grip in grim silence he hung on while the Daker plunged and when it fell tugged and worried as if to shake the life out of it what with the hot sun the heavy sand and the pace at which we had gone I was so pumped that I finished the last hundred yards at a walk and had plenty of time to see what was going on but even when I got up to them the struggle was so fierce and the movement so quick that for some time it was not possible to get hold of the Daker and finish it off at last came one particularly bad fall when the buck rolled on its back and then Jock let go of his grip and made a dash for his throat but again the Daker was too quick for him with one twisted was up and round and facing him on its one knee and dug thrust and swept with its black spiky horn so vigorously that it was impossible to get at its neck as Jock rushed in the head ducked and splashed round so swiftly that it seemed as if nothing could save him from being stabbed through and through but his quickness and cleverness were a revelation to me if he could not catch the Daker it could not catch him they were in a way too quick for each other and they were a long way too quick for me time after time I tried to get in close enough to grab one of the back's hind legs but it was not to be caught while Jock was at it fast and furious in front I tried to creep up quietly behind but it was no use the Daker kept facing Jock with horns down and whenever I moved it swung round and kept me in front also finally I tried to run straight in and then it made another dash for Liberty on three legs however it had no chance and in another minute Jock had it again and down they came together rolling over and over once more the Daker struggled hard but he hung on and each time it got its feet to the ground to rise he would tug sideways and roll it over again until I got up to them and catching the back by the head held it down with my knees on his neck and my Bushman's friend in hand to finish it there was however still another lesson for us both to learn that day neither of us knew what a back can do with its hind feet when it is down the Daker was flat on its side Jock, thinking the fight was over had let go and before I could move the supple body doubled up and the feet whizzed viciously at me right over its head the pointed clavin feet are as hard and sharp as horns and will tear the flesh like claws by good luck the kick only grazed my arm but although the touch was the lightest it cut the skin and little beads of blood shot up marking the line like a scratch of a thorn missing my arm the hoof struck full on the hand of the Bushman's friend and sent it flying out of reach and it was not merely one kick faster than I could follow them the little feet whizzed and the legs of a wheel holding the horns at arm's length in order to dodge the kicks I tried to pull the Daker towards the knife but it was too much for me and with a sudden twist and a wrench freed itself and was off again all the time Jock was moving round and round panting and licking his chops stepping in and stepping back giving anxious little whimpers and longing to be at it again but not daring to join in without permission when the Daker broke away however and was on to it in one spring again from behind and this time he let go as it fell and jumping free of it had it by the throat before it could rise I ran to them again but picking up the knife had delayed me and I was not in time to save Jock the same lesson that the Daker had just taught me down on its side with Jock's jaw locked on its throat once more the Daker doubled up and used its feet the first kick went over his head obviously along his back but the second caught him at the point of his shoulder and the razor like toad ripped his side right to the hip then the dog showed his pluck and cleverness his side was cut open as if he had been slashed by a knife but he never flinched or loosened his grip for a second he seemed to go to it more ferociously than ever but more cleverly and wearily he swung his body round clear of the whizzing feet watching them with his little beady eyes and the gleaming whites showing in the corners he tugged away incessantly and vigorously keeping the buck's neck stretched out and pulling it round in a circle backwards so that it could not possibly double its body up enough to kick him again and before I could catch the feet to help him the kicks grew weaker the buck slackened out and Jock had won the sun was hot, the sand was deep and the rifle was hard to find it was a long walk back to the wagons a heavy load but the end of the first chase seemed so good that nothing else mattered the only thing I did mind was the open cut on Jock's side but he minded nothing his tail was going like a telegraph needle he was panting with his mouth open from ear to ear and his fed tongue hanging out and making great slapping legs at his chops from time to time he was not still for a second but kept walking in and stepping back in a circle round the daker and then down at it as if he was not at all sure that there might not be some fresh game on and was consulting me as to whether it would not be a good thing to have another go at it and make it all safe he was just as happy as a dog could be and perhaps he was proud of the wound that left a straight line from his shoulder to his hip and showed up like a cord under the golden brindle as long as he lived a memento of his first real hunt End of Chapter 6 Chapter 7 of Jock of the Bushbelt This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Susie Essay Hermana, South Africa, February 2010 Jock of the Bushbelt by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick Chapter 7 In the Heart of the Bush When the hen picked Jock on the nose she gave him a useful lesson in the art of finding out what you want to know without getting into trouble As he got older he also learned that there were only certain things which concerned him and which it was necessary for him to know The young dog begins by thinking that he can do everything go everywhere and know everything and a hunting dog has to learn to mind his own business as well as to understand it Some dogs turn salky or timid or stupid when they are checked but an intelligent dog with a start heart will learn little by little to leave other things alone and grow steadily keener on his own work There was no mistake about Jock's keenness When I took down the rifle from the wagon he did not go off into ecstasies of barking as most sporting dogs will do but would give a quick look up with an eager little run towards me give a whimper of joy, make two or three bounds as if wanting to stretch his muscles and loosen his joints then shake himself vigorously as though he had just come out of the water with a soft suppressed woo woo woo All of contentment dropped silently to his place at my heels and gave his whole attention to his work He was the best of companions and through the years that we hunted together I am never tired of watching him There was always something to learn something to admire something to be grateful for and very often something to laugh at in a way in which we only laugh at those whom we are fond of It was the struggle between Jock's intense keenness and his sense of duty that his place was behind me but probably he also knew that nine times out of ten he centred or saw the game long before I knew there was anything near and naturally wanted to be in front or at least abreast of me to show me whatever there was to be seen He noticed just as surely and as quickly as any human could any change in my manner nothing escaped him for his eyes and ears were on the move the whole time It was impossible for me to look for more than a few seconds in any one direction or stop or even to turn my head to listen without being caught by him His bright brown eyes were everlastingly on the watch and on the move from me to the bush, from the bush back to me When we were after game and he could scent or see it he would keep a foot or two to the side of me so as to have a clear view and when he knew by my manner that I thought there was game near he kept so close up that he would often bump against my heels as I walked or run right into my legs if I stopped suddenly Often when stalking back very quietly and cautiously thinking only of what was in front I could get quite a start by feeling something bump up against me behind At these times it was impossible to say anything without risk of scaring the game and I got into the habit of making signs with my hand which he understood quite as well Sometimes after having called up I would be in the act of aiming when he would press up against me Nothing puts one off so much as a touch or the expectation of being jogged when in the act of firing and I used to get angry with him then but dared not breathe a word I would lower my head slowly turn around and give him a look He knew quite well what it meant Down would go his ears instantly and he would back away from me a couple of steps drop his stump of a tail and wag it in a feeble, deprecating way and open his mouth in a sort of foolish laugh That was his apology I beg your pardon, it was an accident I won't do it again It was quite impossible to be angry with him He was so keen and he meant so well and when he saw me laughing softly at him he would come up again close to me cock his tail a few inches higher and wag it a bit faster There is a deal of expression in the dog's tail it will generally tell you what his feelings are My friend maintained that that was how he knew his old dog was enjoying the joke against the cockle and that is certainly how I knew what Jock was thinking about once when lost in the felt and it showed me the way back It is easy enough to lose oneself in the bush felt The burg stands up some thousands of feet inland on the west looking as if it has been put there to hold up the high felt and between the foothills and the sea lies the bush felt stretching for hundreds of miles north and south From the height and distance of the burg it looks as flat as a floor but in many parts it is very much cut by deep rough dongers, sharp rises and depressions and numbers of small copies Still it has a way of looking flat because the hills are small and very much alike and because hill and hollow are covered and hidden mile after mile by small trees of a wonderful sameness just near enough together to prevent you from seeing more than a few hundred yards at a time Most people see no differences in sheep many believe that all China men are exactly alike and so it is with the bush felt that you have to know it first So far I had never lost my way out hunting The experiences of other men and the warnings from the old hands had made me very careful We were always hearing of men being lost through leaving the road and following up the game while they were excited without noticing which way they went or how long they had been going There was no beaten tracks and very few landmarks so that even experienced hunters went to stray sometimes for a few hours or a day or two when the mists or heavy rains came in and nothing could be seen beyond fifty or a hundred yards Nearly everyone who goes hunting in the bush felt gets lost some time or another generally in the beginning before he has learnt to notice things Some have been lost for many days until they've blundered on a tour track by accident or were found by a search party Others have been lost and finding no water or food have died Others have been killed by lions and only a boot or a coat or, as it happened in one case that I know of a ring found inside a lion told what had occurred Others have been lost and nothing more ever heard of them There is no feeling quite like that of being lost helplessness, terror and despair The horror of it is so great that every beginner has it before him Everyone has heard of it thought of it and dreamed of it and everyone feels it holding him to the beaten track as the fear of drowning keeps those who cannot swim to shallow water This is just in the beginning Presently, when the little excursions each bolder than the previous have ended without accident the fear grows less and confidence develops Then it is as a rule that the accident comes and the lesson is learnt if you are lucky enough to pull through When the camp is away in the trackless bush it needs a good man always to find the way home There is a couple of hours' chase with all its twists and turns and doublings But when camp is made on a known road a long main road that strikes a fair line between two points of the compass it seems impossible for anyone to be hopelessly lost If the road runs east to west, you, knowing on which side you left it have only to walk north or south steadily and you must strike it again The old hands told the beginners this and we were glad to know that it was only a matter of walking for a few hours more or less that in the end we were bound to find the road and strike some camp Yes, said the old hands It is simple enough here where you have a road running east and west There's only one rule to remember When you have lost your way, don't lose your head But indeed that is just the one rule that you are quite unable to observe Many stories have been told of men being lost Many volumes could be filled with them for the trouble of writing down what any hunter will tell you But no one who has not seen it can realize how the things may happen No one would believe the effect that the terror of being lost and the demoralization which it causes can have on a sane man's senses If you want to know what a man can persuade himself to believe against the evidence of his senses even when his very life depends upon his holding to the absolute truth then you should see a man who is lost in the bush He knows that he has left the road on the north side He loses his bearings He does not know how long, how fast or how far he has walked Yet if he keep his head he will make due south and must inevitably strike the road After going for half an hour and seeing nothing familiar he begins to feel that he is going in the wrong direction Something pulls at him to face right around Only a few minutes more of this and he feels sure that he must have crossed the road without noticing it Therefore he ought to be going north instead of south if he hopes ever to strike it again How, you will ask, can a man imagine it possible to cross a big dusty road twenty or thirty feet wide without seeing it The idea seems absurd Yet they really do believe it One of the first illusions that occurs to men when they lose their heads is that they have done this and it is the cause of scores of cases of lost in the bush The idea that they may have done it is absurd enough but stranger still is the fact that they actually do it If you cannot understand a man thinking he has done such a thing what can you say of a man actually doing it? Impossible, quite impossible, you think Ah, but it is a fact Many know it for a fact and I have witnessed it twice myself once in Meshonaland and once on Delagoa Road I saw men tired, haggard and wild-eyed staring far in front of them, never looking at the ground pressing on, on, on and actually cross well-worn wagon tracks coming from hard-felt onto a sandy wheel-worn track and kicking up a cloud of dust as they passed and utterly blind to the fact that they were walking across the road that they had been searching for in one case for ten hours and in the other for three days When we called to them they had already crossed and were disappearing again into the bush In both cases the sound of the human voice and the relief of being found made them collapse The knees seemed to give way, they could not remain standing The man who loses his head is rarely lost He cannot think, remember, reason or understand and the strangest thing of all is that he often cannot even see properly He fails to see the very thing that he most wants to see even when they are as large as life before him Crossing the road without seeing it is not the only or the most extraordinary example of this sort of thing We were out hunting once in a mounted party but to spare a tired horse I went on foot and took up my stand in a game-running amongst some fawn trees on a low spur of a hill while the others made a big circuit to head off a troop of Kudu Among our party was one who was very nervous He had been lost once for six or eight hours and being haunted by the dread of being lost again His nerve was all gone and he would not go fifty yards without a companion In the excitement of shooting at and galloping after the Kudu probably his dread was forgotten for a moment He himself could not tell how it happened that he became separated and no one else had noticed him The strip of wood along the hills in which I was waiting was four or five miles long but only from one to three hundred yards wide a mere fringe enclosing a little range of corpies and between the stems of the trees I could see our camp and wagons in the open a quarter of a mile away Ten or twelve shots faintly heard in the distance told me that the others were onto the Kudu and knowing the preference of those animals for the bush I took cover behind a big stump and waited For over half an hour however nothing came towards me and believing then that the game had broken off another way I was about to return to camp I heard the tapping of galloping feet a long way off In a few minutes the hard thud an occasional ring over the ground told that it was not the Kudu and soon afterwards I saw a man on horseback He was leaning eagerly forward and thumping the exhausted horse with his rifle and his heels to keep up its staggering gallop I looked about quickly to see what he was chasing and could have slipped past me unnoticed but there was nothing Then thinking that there had been an accident he was coming for help I stepped out into the open and waited for him to come up I stood quite still and he galloped past within ten yards of me so close that his method Get on, you rude, get on, get on as he thumped away at his poor tired horse were perfectly audible What's up, sportsman? I asked no louder than you would say it across a tennis court but the words brought him up whiteface and terrified and he half slid half tumbled off the horse gasping out What's lost? How had he managed to keep within that strip of bush without once getting into the open where he would have seen the line of corpies to which I had told him to stick or could have seen the wagons and the smoke of the big campfire He never could explain I turned him round where he stood and through the trees showed him the white tents of the wagons and the cattle grazing nearby but he was two days to understand or explain anything There are many kinds of men but the kind is not the kind that will ever do for felt life They are for other things and other work You will laugh at them at times when the absurdity is greatest and no harm has been done But see it, see it and realise the suspense the strain and the terror and then even the funniest incident has another side to it See it once and recall that the worst of endings have had such beginnings See it in the most absurd circumstances ever known and laugh, laugh you're full laugh at the victim and laugh with him when it is over and safe But in the end will come the little chilling thought that the strongest, the bravest and the best have known something of it too and that even to those whose courage holds to the last breath there may come a moment when the pulse beats a little faster and the judgement is at fault Baggins who was with us in the first season was no hunter, but he was a good shot and not bad fellow In his case there was no tragedy but there was much laughter and to me a wonderful revelation He showed us as in a play how you can be lost how you can walk forever in one little circle as though drawn to a centre by a magnetic force and how you can miss seeing things in the bush if they do not move We had outspanned in a flat covered with close grass about two feet high and shady flat topped thorn trees The wagons foreign number were drawn up a few yards off the road to a breast The grass was sweet and plentiful the day was hot and still and as we had had a very early morning trek there was not much inclination to move The cattle soon filled themselves and lay down to sleep The boys did the same and we when breakfast was over got into the shade of our wagons some to sleep and others to smoke The wagons, that was his pet name was a passenger returning to England, home and beauty that is to say literally to a comfortable home admiring sisters and a rich indulgent father after having sought his fortune unsuccessfully on the gold fields for fully four months Wagons was good natured unselfish and credulous but he had one fault he yapped he talked until our heads buzzed deep contentedly in a rumpled tarpaulin all through the night's trek and come up fresh as a daisy and full of accumulated chat at the morning art span, just when we unless work or sport called us were wanting to get some sleep We knew well enough what to expect so after breakfast Jimmy who understood Wagons well told him pleasantly that he could sleep, shoot or shut up to shut up was impossible and to sleep again without a risk even for wagons so with a good natured laugh he took the shotgun saying that he would potter around a bit and give us a treat well, he did we had art spanned on the edge of an open space in the Thornbush there are plenty of them to be found in the bushfield spaces a few hundred yards in diameter, like open park land where not a single tree breaks the expanse of wavy yellow grass the wagons with their grayish tents and buck sails and dusty woodwork stood in the fringe of the trees where this little arena touched the road and into its sally wagons gently drawn by the benevolent purpose of giving us a treat what he hoped to find in the opening on that sweltering day he could only tell we knew that no living thing but lizards would be out of the shade just then but we wanted to find him employment harmless to him and us he had been gone for more than half an hour when we heard a shot and a few minutes later he just roused us what the dickens is Buggins doing he asked in a tone so puzzled and interested that we all turned to watch that sportsman according to Jimmy he had been walking about in an erratic way for some time on the far side of the open ground going from one end to the other and then back again then disappearing for a few minutes in the bush and reappearing to again manoeuvre to the open in loops and circles, angles and straight lines now he was walking about at a smart pace looking from side to side apparently searching for something we could see the whole of the arena as clearly as you can see a cricket field from the railings for our wagons form part of the boundary but we could see nothing to explain Buggins's manoeuvres next we saw him face the thorns opposite raised his gun very deliberately and fire into the top of the trees green pigeons said Jimmy firmly and we all agreed that Buggins was after specimens for stuffing but either our guess was wrong or his aim was bad for after standing still for a minute he resumed his vigorous walk by this time Buggins fairly fascinated us even the caffords had roused each other and were watching him away he went at once off to our left and there he repeated the performance but again made no attempt to pick up anything and showed no further interest in whatever it was he had fired at but turned right about face and walked across the open ground in our direction until he was only a couple of hundred yards away there he stopped and began to look about him and making off some few yards in another direction climbed onto a fair-sized amtip five or six feet high and balancing himself cautiously on this he deliberately fired off both barrels in quick succession then the same idea struck us all together and Buggins is lost came from several all choking with laughter Jimmy got up and stepping out into the open besides the wagons called Save Buggins! What the thunder are you doing? To see Buggins slide off that anteep and shuffle shame-facedly back to the wagon before a gallery of four white men and a lot of cappers all cracking and crying with laughter was a sight never to be forgotten I did not want to get lost and be eaten alive or even look ridiculous so I began very carefully glanced back regularly to see what the track, trees, rocks or copies looked like from the other side carefully noted which side of the road I had turned off and always kept my eye on the sun but day after day and month after month went by without accident or serious difficulty and then the same old thing happened familiarity bred contempt and I got the beginner's complaint conceit fever just as others did thought I was a rather fine fellow not like other traps who always have doubts and difficulties in finding their way back but something exceptional with the real instinct in me which hunters, natives and many animals are supposed to have thought in fact I could never get lost so each day I went further and more boldly off the road and got more confident and careless the very last thing that would have occurred to me on this particular day was that there was any chance of being lost or any need to take note of where we went for many weeks we had been hunting in exactly the same sort of country but not of course in the same part and the truth is I did not give the matter a thought at all but went ahead as one does with the things that are done every day as matters of habit End of Chapter 7