 Dedication and Preface of Jock of the Bushfield by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read by Sally McConnell in Bettys Bay, South Africa, in February 2010. Dedication It was the youngest of the high authorities who gravely informed the inquiring stranger that Jock belongs to the little people. This being so, it is clearly the duty, no less than the privilege of the Mianoreta, to dedicate the story of Jock to those keenest and kindest of critics, best of friends, and most delightful of comrades, the little people. Preface Sonny, you can reckon it day and sure that something's wrong about a thing that don't explain itself. That was old Rocky's advice, given three and twenty years ago, not forgotten yet, but in this instance, respectfully ignored. It happened some years ago, and this was the way of it. The fox of Bally-Botherham, having served three generations, in his native Tipperary, in Cafraria and in the Transvaal, seemed entitled to a rest, and when in the half hour before Leitzar, which is the little people's particular own, the demand came from certain autocrats of the nightgown. Now tell us something else. It occurred to the puzzled one to tell of Jock's fight with the table-leg, and that is how the trouble began. Those with experience will know what followed, and for those less fortunate, the modest demand of one, comfortably tucked up tailor-wise and emphasizing his points by excited handshakes with his toes, will convey the idea, It must be all true, and don't leave out anything. To such an audience a story may be told a hundred times, but it must be told, as Kipling says, just so. That is, in the same way, because even a romance, what a three-year-old once excused as only a play-tell, must be true to itself. Once Jock had taken the field, it was not long before the narrator found himself helped, or driven over the pauses by quick suggestions from the gallery. But there were days of fag and worry when thoughts lagged or strayed, and when slips were made, and then a vigilant pitiless memory swooped like the striking falcon on its prey. There came a night when the story was of the old crocodile, and one in the gallery, one of more exuberant fancy, seeing the gate open, ran into the flower-strewn field of romance, and by suggestive questions and eager promptings helped to gather a little posy. And he caught the crocodile by the tail, didn't he? And he hung on and fought him, didn't he? And the old crocodile flung him high into the air, high! And, turning to the two juniors, added, Quite as high as the house! And the narrator, accessory by reason of a mechanical nod and an absent-minded, yes, passed on, thinking it could all be put right next time. But there is no escape from the tangled web when the little people sit in judgment. It was months later when retribution came. The critical point of the story was safely passed, when, oh, the irony and poetic justice of it, it was the innocent tempter himself, who laid his hand in solemn protest on the narrator's shoulder, and, looking at him reproachfully in the eyes, said, Dad, you have left out the best part of all! Don't you remember how? And the description which followed only emphasises the present writer's unfitness for the task he has undertaken. In the text of the story and in the illustration by my friend Mr. Caldwell, who was himself subjected to the same influence, there is left a loophole for fancy. It is open to anyone to believe that Jock is just beginning or just ending his aerial excursion. The important people are not satisfied. But then the page is not big enough to exhibit Jock at the top of that flight of fancy. From the date of that lesson it was apparent that reputations would suffer if the story of Jock were not speedily embodied in some durable and authoritative form, and during a long spell of ill-health many of the incidents were retold in the form of letters to the little people. Other less important persons, grown-ups, read them and sometimes heard them, and so it came about that the story of Jock was to be printed for private circulation for the little people and their friends. Then the story was read in manuscript, and there came still more ambitious councils, some urging the human story of the early days, others the wild animal life of South Africa. Conscious of many deficiencies the narrator has left two great fields practically untouched. Adhering to the original idea the story of Jock and those who come into it. Men and animals come in because of him and the life in which he played so large a part. The attempt to adapt the original letters to the symmetry of a connected story involved as one might have known endless trouble and changes necessitating complete rewriting of most parts and the responsibility and work became still greater when after a casual and unforeseen meeting my friend Mr. Caldwell accepted the suggestion to come out to South Africa and spend six months with us in order to study the game in its native bush and to know the conditions of the life and that experience into the work of illustrating Jock. The writer is well aware that from the above causes and one other there are grave inequalities in style and system and in plain of phrase and thought in different parts of the book. For this feature the one other cause is a learn put forward as a defence. The story belongs to the little people and their requirements were defined it must be all true don't leave out anything. It has been necessary to leave out a great deal but the other condition has been fully and fairly complied with for it is a true story from beginning to end. It is not a diary incidents have been grouped and moved to get over the difficulty of black days and bad spells but there is no incident of importance or of credit to Jock which is not absolutely true. The severest trial in this connection was in the last chapter which is bound to recall perhaps the most famous and most cherished of all dog stories. Much indeed would have been sacrificed to avoid that but it was unthinkable that for any reason one should in the last words shatter the spell that holds Jock dear to those for whom his life is chronicled the spell that lies in a true story. Little by little the book has grown until it has come perilously near the condition in which it might be thought to have pretensions. It has none. It is what it was. A simple record compiled for the interest and satisfaction of some little people and a small tribute of remembrance and affection offered at the shrine of the old life and those who made it tended in the hope that someone better equipped with opportunities and leisure may be inspired to do justice to it and to them for the sake of our native land. End of dedication and preface Chapter 1 of Jock of the Bushfield This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Read by Sally McConnell in Betteys Bay, South Africa in January 2010 Jock of the Bushfield by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick Chapter 1 The Background Of the people who live lonely lives on the felt or elsewhere few do so of their own free choice. Some there are shut off from all their kind souls sheathed in some film invisible through which no thrill of sympathy may pass. Some barred by their self-consciousness heart hungry still who never learned in childhood to make friends. Some have a secret or a grief. Some thought too big or bad for comradeship. But most will charge to fate the thoughtless choice the chance or hard necessity that drove or drew them to the life apart. They know the lesson that was learned of old it is not good for man to be alone. Go out among them ever moving on whose white bones mark the way for others feet who shun the cities living in the wilds and move in silence self-contained. Who knows what they think or dream or hope or suffer? Who can know? For speech among that hard-schooled lot is but a half remembered art. Yet something you may guess since with the man there often goes his dog his silent tribute to the book. Oh, it's little there know of life who cannot guess the secret springs of learningness and love that prompts the keeping of a trifling pet. Who do not know what moves a man who daily takes his chance of life and death? Man whose breath is in his nostrils to lay his cheek against the muzzle of his comrade dog and in the trackless miles of wilderness feel he has a friend something to hold to something to protect. There was old Blake mad, quite mad as everybody knew of whom they vaguely said that horses, hounds, coaches, covers and all that goes with old estates were his once. We knew him poor and middle-aged how old to us. Cherry and unpractical with two old pointers and a filing piece and a heart as warm as toast. We did not ask each other's business there and judging by the dogs and gun we put him down as a remittance man. But that it seems was wrong. They were his all. He left no letters a little pile of paper ash no money and no food that was his pride. He would not sell or give away his dogs that was his love. When he could not keep them it seemed time to go that was his madness. But before he went remembering a friend in hospital he borrowed two cartridges and bought him in a brace of birds. That was old mad Blake who moved on and took his dogs with him because they had always been together and he could not leave their fate to chance. So he buried him with one on either side just as he would have liked it. There was Turner who shot the crocodile that seized his dog and reckless of the others swam in and brought the dog to land. There was the dog that jumped in when his master slipped from the rock and swimming beside him was snapped on in his stead. And there was the boy who tried to rescue him the dog when a rustle, yelp and growl told that the lance had his dog and was never seen again. So it goes and so it went from year to year a little showing now and then like the iceberg's tip from which to guess the bulk below. There was a boy who went to seek his fortune. Call him boy or man the years proved nothing either way. Some will be boyish always others were never young a few most richly-doured few are man and boy together. He went to seek his fortune as boys will ensured no pressure on him from about no promise from beyond. For life was easy there and all was pleasant as it may be in the cage. Today is sure and happy and there is no tomorrow in the cage. There were friends enough all kind and true the wisdom they said here it is safe yonder all is chance where many indeed are called but few so few are chosen many have gone forth some to return beaten hopeless and despised some to fall in sight outside others are lost we know not where and are so few are free and well but the fate of numbers the few are those who count and lead and those who follow do not think half you but cry how strong how free be wise and do not venture here it is safe there is no fortune here but there was something stronger than the things he knew around without beyond the thing that strove within him that grew and grew and beat and fought for freedom that bade him go and walk alone and tell his secret on the mountain slopes to one who would not laugh a little red retriever that made him climb and feel his strength and find an outlet for what drove within and thus the end was sure for of all the voices none so strong as this and only those others reached him that would chime with it the gentle ones which said we too believe and one a stronger saying 50 years ago I did it I would do it now again so the boy set out to seek his fortune and did not find it for there was none in the place where he sought those who warned him were in the little right yet was he in the greater right too it was not given to him as yet to know that fortune is not in time or place or things but good or bad and the man's own self for him alone to find and prove time and place and things had failed him still was if it right and when the first was clear beyond all question it was instinct and not knowledge bade him still go on saying not back to the cage anything but that when many days had passed it was again a friend who met him saying one sense is not cowardice you have made a mistake repair it while you may I have seen and know there is nothing here come back with me and all will be made easy and answer in reason there was none for the little truth was all too plain and the greater not yet seen but that which had swelled to bursting and had fought within for freedom called out failure is the worst of all and the blind and struggling instinct rose against all knowledge and all reason not back to the cage not that and the heart that had once been young spoke up for old Langzine the old eyes softened and dropped God speed you boy goodbye and as the male coach rumbled off the boy put up his head to try again and the boys passed and still there was no work to do for those who were there already hardened men and strong pioneers who had roughened it were themselves in straightened case and it was no place for boys so the boy moved on again and with him a man in equal plight but being a man a guide and comfort to the boy and one to lead him on the way hungry they walked all day the sun went down and light began to fail the place where work and food and sleep should be was still far off the mountain tracks were rough and all unknown the rivers were cold and swift the country wild none lived few ever passed that way when night closed in the boy walked on in front and the man lagged warily grumbling at their luck in the valley at the mountain foot midnight upon water black and still between them and the cabin's lights beyond and there the man lay down then the boy turning in his anger made him come on and dragging him out upon the further bank had found unknowing some little of the fortune he had come to seek still morning brought no change still there was no work to do so the man gave up and sagging back was lost and the boy went on alone rough and straight-spoken but kindly men and true were those he came along what they could they did what they had they gave they made him free of boredom bed and kinder still now and then made work for him to do knowing that his spirit was as theirs and that his heart cried out not charity but work give me work but that they could not do for there was no work they could not do themselves thus the days and weeks went by willing but unused to fend for himself unfit by training for the wild rough life heart and energy all to waste the little he did know of no value there the struggle with the ebbing tide went on it was the wearing hopeless fight against that which one cannot grapple and cannot even see there was no work to be done a few days here and there a little passing job a helping hand disguised and then the quest again they were all friendly but with the kindly habit of the place it told the tale of hopelessness too well they did not even ask his name it made no difference then came a day when there was nowhere else to try among the lounging diggers at their weekend deals he stood apart too shy too proud to tell the truth too conscious of it to trust his voice too hungry to smile as if he didn't care and then a man in muddy moleskins with grave face brown beard and soft blue eyes came over to him saying straight boy you come along with me and he went it was work hard work but the joy of it shoveling in the icy water in mud and gravel and among the boulders from early dawn to dark what matter it was work it was not for hire but just to help one who had helped him to earn his grub and feel he was a man doing the work of his friend's partner who was away for three full weeks the boy worked on grateful for the toil grateful for the knowledge gained most grateful that he could by work repay a kindness and then the truth came out the kindly fiction fell away as they sat and rested on the day of rest the climb could not stand to white men's grub had fallen from the man accounting for his partner's absence it was the simple and unstudied truth and calm unconsciousness of where it struck that gave the thrust its force and in the clear still air of the Sunday morning the boy turned hot and cold and dizzy to think of his folly and of the kindness he had so long imposed upon it was a little spell before his lips would smile and his eyes and voice were firm enough to lie then he said gently if he could be spared he had not liked to ask before but now the floods were over and the river turned perhaps it could be managed he would like to go as there were letters waiting and he expected news up the winding pathway over rocky ledge and grotty slope climbing for an hour to the pass the toil and effort kept the hot thoughts under at the top the boy sat down to rest the green rock-crested mountains stood like resting giants all around the rivers, silvered by the sun threaded their ways between the air was clear and cool and still the world was very beautiful from here far, far below a brownish speck beside the silver streak stood the cabin he had lived and without warning all came back to him what he had mastered rose beyond control the little child that lies hidden in us all reached out as in the dark for a hand to hold and there was none his arms went up to hide the mocking glory of the day and face buried in the grass he sobbed not worth my food science tells that nature will recoup herself by ways as well defined as those that grow mechanics the blood flows upward and the brains a whirl the ibtide sits and there is rest the boss sways the guiding hand we know that often when we need it most there comes relief gently, unbidden unobserved the boy slept and there was peace a while then came faint echoes of the waking thoughts odd words shot out of hope and resolution murmured names of those at home once his hand went out and gently touched the turf reaching for the friend and comrade of the past one who knew his every mood had heard his wildest dreams described had seen him hot-eyed breathless struggling to escape the cage one to whom the boy's soul was often buried in foolish confidence one who could see and hear and feel yet never tell a little red retriever left at home and the boy stirred and sighed for answer to the soft brown eyes no it's not good for man to be alone a wisp of drifting cloud came by a breath of cooler air and the fickle spirit of the mountain changed the day as with a wand the boy woke up shivering dazed bewildered the mountain of his dreams had vanished and his dog was not there the cold driving mist had blotted out the world stronger and stronger grew the wind driving the damp cold through and through for on the bleak plateau of the mountain nothing broke its force pale and shaken and a little stiff he looked about then slowly faced the storm it had not struck him to turn back the gusts blew stronger and through the mist came rain in single stinging drops portents of the greater storm slowly as he bent to breast it the chilled blood warmed and when the first thunderclap split overhead and lost itself in endless roars and rumblings in the cluths and hills around there came a warmth about his heart and a light into his eye mute thanksgiving that here was something he could battle with and be a man again in the midst of the world the storms work all their fury only there come mist and wind and rain thunder and lightning and hail together the pitiless terrible hail there where the hair hiding in the grass may know it is the highest thing in all God's world and nearest to the storm the one clear mark to draw the lightning and knowing scurries to the sheltered slopes but the boy pressed on the little path erasing stream to guide him then in one group of ghostly mist blurred rocks he stopped to drink and as he bent for all the blackness of the storm his face leapt out at him reflected for one instant in the shallow pool the blue white flame of lightning blinding his aching eyes his stun the sickening smell of brimstone spread about and crashing thunder close above his head lift him dazed and breathless heedless of the rain blinking the blackness from his eyes he sat still for head to clear and limbs to feel their life again and as he waited slowly there came upon a colder stiller air that other roar so far so dull so uniform so weird and terrifying of the coming hail huddled beneath the shelving rock he watched the storm sweep by with awful battering din that swamped and silenced every other sound the tearing smashing hail that seemed to strip the mountain to its very bone oh the wanton fury of the hail the wild destructive charge of hordes of savage cavalry the stamping sweep along the narrow strip where all the fury concentrates the long black trail of death and desolation the birds and beasts the things that creep and fly all know the portents and all flee before it or aside but in the darkness in the night or mist the slow the weak the helpless and the mothers with their young for them there is little hope the dense packed column swept along ruthless raging and unheeding overwhelming awe a sudden failing of its strength a little straggling tail and then the silence the sun came out the wind died down light veils of mist came slowly by bits of floating gossamer and melted in the clear air the boy stepped out once more miles away the black column of the falling hail sped its appointed course under his feet where all had been so green and beautiful was battered turf for the time transformed into a mass of dazzling brilliance where jagged ice stones caught the sunlight on their countless facets and threw it back in one fierce flashing glare blinding in its brilliance on the glittering surface many things stood out in the narrow pathway near the spring a snake lay on its back crushed and broken beyond it a tortoise not yet dead but bruised and battered through its shell then a partridge poor unprotected thing the wet feathers lying all around stripped as though a hawk had stricken it and close behind it all the little brood and further afield lay something reddish brown a buck the large eyes glazed an ooze of blood upon its lips and nose he stooped to touch it but drew back the dainty little thing was pulp all striving for the sheltered rocks all caught and stricken by the ruthless storm and he going on to face it while others fled before he blindly fighting on was spared was it luck or was there something subtle more he held to this that more than chance had swayed the guiding hand of fate that fortune holds some gifts in store for those who try and faith resurgent moved him to a mute tedium of which no more reached the conscious brain then it is good to be alive but better so than in the cage once more a little of the fortune that he had come to seek at sunset passing down the long rough gorge he came upon one battling with the flood to save his all the white man struggling with the frightened beasts the keffa swept from off his feet the mad bewildered oxen yielding to the stream and heading down towards the falls and in their utmost need the boy swam in and helped and there the long slow ebb was stayed the boy was worth his food but how recall the life when those who made it set so little store by all that past and took its ventures for their daily lot when those who knew it had no gift or thought to fix the colours of the fading past the fire of youth the hopes the toil the bright illusions gone and now the story of a dog to conjure up a face a name a voice or the grip of a friendly hand and the half dreamed sound of the trampling feet is all that is left of the live procession long since past the young recruits the laggards and the faint the few who saw it through the older men who judged the future by the battered past and who knew none more or less than man unconscious equals of the best and least the grey hued years the thinning ranks the summons answered as they had lived alone the tale untold and of all who knew it none left to picture nor the life none left to play a grateful comrade's part and place their record on a country's scroll the kindly constant nameless pioneers end of chapter one chapter two of jock of the bush felt this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org read by Sally McConnell in Bettys Bay, South Africa jock of the bush felt by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick chapter two into the bush felt distant hills are always green and the best gold further on is of nature, human nature which is quite superior to facts and thus the world moves on so from the Leidenberg gold fields prospectors humping their swags or driving their small packed donkeys spread afield and transport riders with their long spans and rumbling wagons followed cutting a wider track where traders with winding strings of carriers had already ventured on but the hunters had gone first there were great hunters whose names are known and others as great who missed the accident of fame and after them hunters who traded and traders who hunted and so too with prospectors, diggers transport riders and all between the gold fields and the nearest port lay the bush felt and game enough for all to live on thus all were hunters of assault but the great hunters the hunters of big game were apart we were the smaller fry there to admire and imitate trophies carried back with pride or by force of habit less scattered about neglected and forgotten round the outspans and tents of learned prospectors the cabins of the diggers and the grass wayside shanties of the traders how many a record head must have gone then when none had thought of time or means to save them horns and skins lay jumbled heaps in the yards or sheds of the big trading stalls the splendid horns of the kudu and sable and a score of others only less beautiful we seen nailed up in crude adornment of the roughest walls nailed up and then unnoticed and forgotten and yet not quite or although to the older hands they were of no further interest to the newcomer they spoke of something yet to see and something to be done and the sight set him dreaming of the time when he too would go hunting and bring his trophies home perched on the edge of the Berg we overlooked the wonder world of the bush felt with a big game roamed in thousands and the wildest tales are true living on the fringe of a hunter's paradise most of us were drawn into it from time to time for shorter or longer spells as opportunity and our circumstances allowed and little by little one got to know the names, appearances and habits of many kinds of game below long talks in the quiet nights up there under the wagons in grass shelters in the woods or in the wattle and daub shanties of the diggers where men passed to and fro swapped lives as the polite phrase went were our knights' entertainments when younger hands might learn much that was useful and true and more that was neither it was a school of grown-up school boys no doubt a hard one but it had its playground side and it was the habit of the school to drop onto any breach of the unwritten laws to rub in with remorseless good humor the mistakes that were made and to play upon credulity with a kindness and nerve quite paralyzing to the judgment of the inexperienced yet with it all there was a kindliness and quick instinct of fair dues which tempered the wind and in the main gave no one more than was good for him there the new boy had to run the gauntlet and if without a watchful instinct or a friendly hint there was nothing to warn him of it when Faulkner dragged to the piano protested that he remembered nothing but a mere soul he was not conscious of transgression but a delighted audience caught up the word and thenceforth he was known only as encore Harry the sailor having explained that more so was a recognized variant Johnny come lately's got to learn was held to be adequate reason for letting many a beginner by his experience while those who had been through it all watched him stumble into the well-known pitfalls it would no doubt have been a much more comfortable arrangement all around had there been a polite ignoring of each other's blunders and absurdities but that is not the way of schools where the spirit of fun plays its useful part and after all the lesson well rubbed in is well remembered the new assayer primed by us with tales of sable antelope run Mack Mack camp shot old Jim Hill's only goat and had to leave the carcass with a note of explanation Jim being art when he called what he heard from us when we returned all prickly with remorse and shame was a liberal education but what he remembers best is Jim's note addressed that evening to our camp boys Jim Hill requests your company to dinner tomorrow Sunday mutton as the summer spent itself and whispers spread around of new strikes further on a spirit of restlessness a touch of trek fever came upon us and each cast about which way to try his luck our camp was the summer headquarters of two transport riders and when many months of hard work timber cutting on the Berg contracting for the companies pole slipping in the bush and others gave us at last a rise it seemed the natural thing to put all into wagons and oxen and go transport riding too the charm of a life of freedom and complete independence a life in which a man goes his home with him is great indeed but great too was the fact that hunting would go with it how the little things that Mark and you depart just amp themselves indelibly on the memory a flower in the hedgerow where the roads divide will mark a spot in one's mind forever and yet a million more before and after and all is beautiful are past unseen in memory it is all as fresh bright and glorious as ever only the years have gone the start the trick along the plateau the crystal streams the ferns and trees the cool pure air and through and over all the quite intoxicating sense of freedom then came the long slow climb to Spitzcorp where the Berg is highest and where our descent began for there with Africa's contrariness the highest parts banked up and buttressed by gigantic spurs are most accessible from below while the lower edges of the plateau are cut off share like the walls of some great fortress there near Spitzcorp we looked down upon the promised land there stood upon the utmost edge as a diver on his board and paused and looked and breathed before we took the plunge it is well to pitch one's expectations low and so stable of disappointments but councils of perfection are wasted on the young and when accident combines with the hopefulness of youth to lay the colours on in all their gorgeousness what chance has wisdom see here young fella said wisdom don't go and fill yourself up with tomfooled notions about lions and tigers waiting behind every bush you won't see one in a twelve month most like you won't see a buck for a week you don't know what to do what to wear how to walk how to look or what to look for and you'll make as much noise as a traction engine this ain't open country it's bush they can see and hear and you can't and as for big game you won't see any for a long while yet so don't go fool yourself excellent but fortune in the sport of mood ordained that the very first thing we saw as we outspent its ordnance on the very first day in the bush felt was the fresh skin of a lion stretched out to dry what would the councils of Solomon himself had weighed against that wet skin wisdom scratched its head instead well I'm completely completely sugared of course it was a fluke no lions had been seen in the locality for several years but the beginner filled with all the wildest expectations took no heed of that if the wish be farther to the thought then surely fact may well beget conviction it was so in this case at any rate and thus not all the cold assurances of wisdom could banish visions of big game as plentiful as partridges a party had set out upon a tiger hunt to clear out one of those marauders who used to haunt the cloupes of the burg and make dissents upon the caffher-herds of goats and sheep but there was a special interest in this particular tiger for he had killed one of the white hunters in the last attempt to get at him a few weeks before starting from the store the party of men and boys worked their way towards the cloof and the possibility of coming across a lion never entered their heads no notice was taken of smaller game product from time to time he moved carelessly along a rustle on the left of the lion was ignored and Bill Saunderson was as surprised as Bill could ever be to see a young lion facing him at something like six or seven yards the lion with head laid level and tail flicking ominously half crouched for its spring Bill's bullet glanced along the skull peeling off the skin that was a bad shot he said afterwards in answer to the beginner's breathless questions but just sank a little like a pointer when you check him but before he steadied up again I took for the nose and I got him you see he added thoughtfully a lion's got no forehead it's all hair that was about all he had to say but as little store as he may have set on it the tip was never forgotten and proved of much value to at least one of our party years afterwards to this day the picture of a lion brings up that scene the crutching beast faced by a man with a long brown beard solemn face and clear unfaltering eyes the swift yet quiet action of reloading and the second shot an inch or so lower because a lion's got no forehead it's all hair the shooting of a lion fair and square and face to face was the blue ribbon of the bush and no detail would have seemed superfluous but Bill, whose eye nothing could escape had like many great hunters a laggard tongue only now and then a look of grave amusement lighted up his face to show he recognized the hungry enthusiasm and his own inability to satisfy it the skin with the grey stripe along the nose and the broken skull were handled and looked at many times and the story was pumped from every keffa all voluble and eager but none eye witnesses Bob the sociable and more communicative who had been nearest his brother was asked a hundred questions but all he had to say was that the grass was too long for him to see what happened he reckoned that it was a pretty near thing after the first shot but Bill's all right to me it was an absurd and tiresome affectation to show interest in any other topic and when during that evening conversations strayed to other subjects it seemed a waste of time and priceless opportunity Bob responded good-naturedly to many crude attempts to hit them back to the entrancing theme but the professional interest in rates, loads, rivers, roads, disease, drought and fly was strong in the older transport riders as it should have been but for the time at least was not in me if diplomacy failed however luck was not all out when all the pet subjects of the road had been thrashed out and it was about time to turn in a stray question bought the reward of patience have you heard if Jim reached Durban all right yes, safely shipped you got someone to take him right through no, a Dutchman took him to Leidenburg and then I got Tom Hardy to go back empty to take him along from there what about feeding I sent some goats, said Bob smiling for a moment at some passing thought and then went on, Tom said he had an old span that wouldn't mind it we loaded him up at Parker's and I cleared out before we got the cattle up but they tell me there was a gay jamboree when it came to in spanning and as soon as they got up to the other wagons and the young bullocks winded Jim they started off with their tails up a regular stampede four loopers and drivers yelling like mad all the loose things shaking out of the wagons and Tom nearly in a fit from running shouting and swearing judging by the laughter there was only one person present who did not understand the joke and I had to ask with some misgivings who was this Jim who needed so much care and feeding and caused such a scare there was another burst of laughter as they guessed my thoughts and it was Bob who answered me only a lion lad not a wild man or a lunatic only a young lion sold him to the zoo and had to deliver him in Durban well you fairly took me in with the name oh Jim well that's his pet name his real name is Debulamanze Jim, a hunting boy, caught him so we call him Jim out of compliment he added with a grin but Jim called him Debulamanze also out of compliment and I think that was pretty good for a nigger you see said Bob for the benefit of those who were not up in local history Debulamanze the big fighting general in the Zulu war was Jim's own chief and leader and the name means the one who conquers the waters then one of the others explained oh of course that's how you got him isn't it caught him in a river tell us what did happen Bob what's the truth of it it seemed a bit steep as I heard it well it's really simple enough we came right on to the lioness waiting for us and I got to and then there were shouts from the boys and I saw a couple of cubs pretty well grown making off in the grass this boy Jim legged it off to one of them as big as a Newfoundland dog but not so high but longer I followed as fast as I could but he was a big Zulu and went like a buck yelling like mad all the time we were in the bend of one of the long pools down near the commodity and when I got through the reeds the cub was at the water's edge facing Jim and Jim was dancing around heading it off with only one light stick as soon as it saw us coming on the cub took to the water it was as good as a play Jim swam up behind and putting his hand on its head ducked it right under the cub turned as it came up and struck out at him viciously but he was back out of reach when it turned again to go Jim ducked it again and it went on like that six or eight times till the thing was half drowned and had no more fight left in it then Jim got hold of it by the tail and swam back to us mad with excitement of course added Bob with a wag of his head you can say it was only a cub but it takes a good man to go up naked and tackle a thing like that with teeth and claws to cut you into ribbons was Jim here today? I asked as soon as there was an opening Bob shook his head with a kindly regretful smile nah sonny not here you'd have heard him Jim's gone a real fine nigger but a tear at the drink and always in trouble he fairly wore me right out we were generally a party of half a dozen the earners of the four wagons a couple of friends trading with Della Goa a man from Switzerland and just then an old Yankee Hunter Prospector it was our holiday time before the hard work with lords would commence and we dawdled along feeding up the cattle and taking it easy ourselves it was too early for lords in the bay so we moved slowly and hunted on the way sometimes camping for several days in places where the grass and water were good and that lion skin was the cause of many disappointments to me never a bush or anteep never a donger or a patch of reeds did I pass for many days after that without the conviction that something was lurking there game there was in plenty no doubt but it did not come my way days went by with once or twice the sight of some small buck just as it disappeared and many times the noise of something in the bush or the sound of galloping feet others brought their contributions to the pot daily and there seemed to be no reason in the world why I alone should fail no reason except share bad luck it is difficult to believe you've made mistakes when you do not know enough to recognize them and have no idea of the extent of your own ignorance and then bad luck is such an easy and a flattering explanation if I did not go so far on the easy word of excuse making as to put all the failures down to bad luck perhaps someone else deserves the credit one evening as we were lounging round the campfire Robbie failing to find a spot for his head on a thorn log got up reluctantly to fetch his blankets exclaiming with a mock tragic air the time is out of joint oh cursed spite that ever I was born to set it right we knew Robbie's way there were times when he would spot heroics suggested by some passing trifle his own face a marvel of solemnity the whole time and only the amused expression in his spectacled grey eyes to show that he was poking fun at himself an indulgent smile a chuckle and the genial comment silly ass came from different quarters for Robbie was a favorite only old Rocky maintained his usual gravity as Robbie settled down again in comfort the old man remarked in libel thoughtful terms I reckon the fella has said it was a waster he chucked it there was a short pause in which I and my ignorance began to wonder if it was possible that Rocky did not know the source or did he take the quotation seriously then Robbie answered in mild protest it was a gentleman of the name of Hamlet who said it well you can bet he was no good anyhow Rocky draw dot just by luck is the waster's motto they do say he was mad Robbie replied as his face twitched with a pull your leg expression but he got off a lot of first class things all the same some of the best things ever said oh dare say they mostly can but a man who sits down and blames his luck is no good anyhow he's got no sand and got no sense and got no honesty it ain't the time that's wrong it's the man it ain't the jobs too big it's the man's too little you don't believe in luck at all Rocky I ventured to put in I don't say there is no such thing as luck good and bad but it ain't the explanation of success and failure not by a long why no serene luck's just the thing any man like to believe is the reason for his failure and another fella's success but it ain't so when another man pulls off what you don't the first thing you gotta believe is it's your own fault and the last it's his luck and you just gotta wade in and find out where you went wrong and put it right without any excuses and explanations but Rocky explanations aren't always excuses and sometimes you really have to give them Sunny you can reckon it's dead sure there's something wrong about a thing that don't explain itself and one explanations as bad as two mistakes it don't fool anybody worth speaking of except yourself you find the remedy you can leave other folks put up the excuses I was beaten it was no use going on for I knew he was right I suppose the other fellas also knew whom he was getting at but they said nothing and the subject seemed to have dropped when Rocky harking back to Robbie's quotation said with a ghost of a smile I reckon if that sharp a yarn had to keep the camp in meat we'd go pretty nigh hungry but it seemed a good deal to give up all at once the bad luck the excuses and explanations and the comfort they afforded and I could not help thinking of that Richard wrong-headed stem-buck that had actually allowed me to pass it and then cantered away behind me Rocky known liked and respected by all yet intimate with none was going north even to the Zambezi it was whispered but no one knew where or why he was going off alone with two packed donkeys and not even the boy for company on a trip of many hundreds of miles and indefinite duration no doubt he had an idea to work out perhaps a report of some trader or hunter or even native was his pole-stop most certainly he had a plan but what it was no living soul would know that was the way of his kind with them there was no limit in time or distance no hint of purpose or direction no home no address no people perhaps a partner somewhere or a chum as silent as themselves who would hear some day if there was anything to tell Rocky had worked near our camp on the Berg I had known him to nod to and when we met again at one of the early art spans in the bush and offered a lift for him in his packs he accepted and joined us it's still being a bit early to attempt crossing rivers with packed donkeys it may be that the lift saved his donkeys something on the roughest roads and in the early stages or it may be that we served as a useful screen for his movement making it difficult for anyone else to follow his line and watch him anyway he joined us in the way of those days that is we traveled together and as a rule we grubbed together yet each cooked for himself and used his own stores and in principle we maintained our separate establishments the bag alone was common each man bought what game he got and threw it into the common stock the secret of the agreement in the felt is complete independence points of contact or points of friction nowhere more so and the safest plan is each man his own outfit and each free to read or sleep or trick as or when he chooses I have known partners and friends who would from time to time move a trek apart or a day apart and always camp apart when they rejoined and so remain friends Rocky in full rocky mountain Jack had another name but that was known to few besides the mining commissioners clock who registered his licenses from time to time in the Rockies where I was raised is about the only remark having deliberate reference to his personal history which he was known to have made but it was enough on which to found the name by which we knew him what struck me first about him was the long coats revolver carried on his hip and for two days this gun as he called it conjured up visions of poker flat and roaring camp Jack Hamlin and Uber Bill of cherished memory and then the inevitable question got itself asked did you ever shoot a man Rocky no sunny he drooled gently never had to use it yet it looks very old have you had it long just about 30 years I reckon oh seems a long time to carry a thing without using it wow he answered off absolutely that so it's a thing you don't want often but when you do you want it done bad Rocky seemed to me to have stepped into our life out of the pages of Bret Hart for me the glamour of a romance was cast by the master spell over all that world and no doubt helped to make old Rocky something of the hero in the eyes of you but such help was a small account for the cardinal fact was Rocky himself he was a man they did not seem to be any known region of the earth where prospectors roam that he had not sampled and yet whilst gleaning something from every land his native flavor clung to him changed he was silent by habit and impossible to draw not helpful to those who looked for shortcuts yet kindly and patient with those who meant to try he was not to be exploited and had an illuminating instinct for what was not genuine he had no use for short weight and showed it I used to watch him in the circle around the fire at night his grave face weather stand and wrinkled with clear gray eyes and long brown beard slightly grizzled then watch and wonder why Rocky experienced wise and steadfast should at sixty be seeking still were the prizes so few in the prospectors life or was there something wanting in him too why had he not achieved success it was not so clear then that ideals differ Rocky's life was the life not the escape from it there was something sentiment imagination poetry call it what you will that could make common success seem to him common indeed and cheap to follow in a new rush to reap where another had sown had no charm for him it may be that an inborn pride disliked it but it seems more likely that it simply did not attract him and if as in the end I thought Rocky had taken the world as it is and backed himself against it living up to his ideal playing alone hand and playing it fair in all conditions trading the unbeaten tracks finding his triumph in his work always moving on and contented so to end crown he was a man then surely Rockies had achieved success that is Rocky as remembered now a bit idealized perhaps so but who can say in truth he had his sides and the defects of his qualities like anyone else and it was not everyone who made a hero of him many left him respectfully alone and something of their feeling came to me the first time I was with him when a stupid chatterer talked and asked too much he was not surly or taciturn but I felt frozen through by a calm deadly unresponsiveness which anything with blood and brain should have shrunk under the dull monotone the ominous draw something in his clear calm eyes which I cannot define gave an almost corrosive effect to innocent words and the voice of lazy gentlemen what's the best thing to do following up a wounded buffalo was the question the question sprung briskly as only a yapper puts them and the answers came like reluctant drops from a filter get out yes but if there isn't time say your prayers no seriously what's the best way of tackling one if you want to know there's only one way keep cool and shoot straight oh of course if you can and if you can he added in full killer turns best stay right home rocky had no fancy notions he hunted for meat and got it as soon as possible he was seldom out long and really indeed came back empty handed I had already learnt not to be too ready with questions it was better so rocky put it to keep your eyes open and your mouth shut but the results at first hardly seemed to justify the process at the end of a week of failures and disappointments all I knew was that I knew nothing a very noticeable advance it is true but one quite difficult to appreciate thus it came to me in the light of a distinction when one evening after a rueful confession of blundering made to the party in general rocky passed a brief but not unfriendly glance over at me and said only the born fools stay fools you gotta learn by and by you ain't always yapping it was not an extravagant compliment but failure and helplessness act on conceit like water on a starched collar mine was limp by that time and I was grateful for little things most grateful when next morning as we were discussing our several ways he turned to me and asked gently coming along boy surprise and gratitude must have produced a touch of effusiveness which jarred on him for to the eager explanation and thanks he made no answer just moved on leaving me to follow in his scheme of life there was no call to slap over there was a quiet unhesitating sureness and a definiteness of purpose about old rocky's movements which immediately inspired confidence we had not been gone many minutes before I began to have visions of exciting chases and glorious endings they took possession of me so completely that I failed to notice the difference between his methods and mine presently brimful of excitement and hope I asked chairly what he thought we would get the old man stopped and with a gentle graveness of look and a voice from which all trace of tartness or sarcasm was banished said see sonny if you been used to going round like a dog with a tin it ain't any wonder you seen nothing you gotta walk soft and keep your head shut and reply to my apology he said that there was no bell and curtain in this airplay you gotta be there waiting jockey knew better than I did the extent of his good nature he knew that in all probability it meant to waste a day for with the best will in the world the beginner is almost certain to spoil sport it looks so simple and easy when you have only read about it or heard about sport but there are pitfalls at every step when in what seemed to me perfectly still air rocky took a pinch of dust and let it drop and afterwards wet one finger and held it up to feel which side cooled it was not difficult to know that he was trying the wind and when he changed direction suddenly for no apparent reason or when he stopped and after a glance at the ground slackened his frame lost all interest in sport and dressed to remark to me in ordinary terms I was hopelessly at sea his manner showed that some possibility was disposed of and some idea abandoned once he said right back heard as I reckon and then turned off at a right angle but a little later on he pointed to other spoil and indifferently dropping the one word kuru continued straight on to me the two spoils seemed equally fresh he saw hours perhaps a whole difference between them that the rit buck scared by us had gone ahead and was keenly on the watch for us and therefore not worth following and that the kuru was on the move and had simply struck across our line and was therefore not to be overtaken were conclusions he drew without hesitation I only saw spoil and began to palpitate the thoughts of bagging a kuru ball we had been out perhaps an hour and by unceasing watchfulness I had learned many things they were as useful as a sentence in a foreign tongue got off by heart but to me they seemed the essentials and fundamentals of hunting I was feeling very pleased with myself and confident of the result the stumbling over stones and stumps had ceased and there was no catching in thorns crunching on bare gritty places clinking on rocks or crackling of dry twigs and as we moved on in silence the visions of kuru and other big game became very real there was nothing to hinder them to do as Rocky did had become mechanically easy a glance in his direction every now and then was about enough there was time and temptation to look about and still perhaps to be the first to spot the game it was after taking one such casual glance around that I suddenly missed Rocky a moment later I saw him moving forward fast but silently under cover of an antique stooping low and signing to me with one hand behind his back with a horrible feeling of having failed him I made a hurried step sideways to get into line behind him and the antique and I stepped right onto a pile of dry crackly sticks Rocky stood up quietly and waited while I wished the earth would open and swallow me when I got up abreast he half turned and looked me over with eyes slightly narrowed and a faint but ominous smile on one side of his mouth and drawled out gently your order brought some firecrackers if only he had sworn at me it would have been indurable we moved on again and this time I had eyes for nothing but Rocky's back and where to put my foot next it was not very long before he checked in mid-stride and I stood rigid as a pointer peering intently over his shoulder in the direction in which he looked I could see nothing the bush was very open and yet even with his raised rifle to guide me I could not for the life of me see he was aiming it and then the shot rang out and a diker toppled over kicking in the grass not a hundred yards away the remembrance of certain things still makes me feel uncomfortable the yell of delight I let out as the buck fell the wild dash forward which died away to a dead stop as I realised that Rocky himself had not moved the sight of him as I looked back calmly reloading and the silence to me it was an event to him his work but these things were forgotten then lost behind the everlasting puzzle how is it possible I had not seen the buck until it fell Rocky must have known what was wearing me for after he had picked up the buck he remarked without any preliminary it ain't easy in this bush to pick up what don't move and it ain't hardly possible to find out what you don't know game you mean this one was feeding he answered after a nod in reply I saw his head go up to listen but when they don't move and you don't just know what they look like you can most walk atop of them you've got to kind of shape them in your eye and when you got that fixed you can pick them up almost anywhere it cost Rocky an effort to volunteer anything there were others always ready to talk and advise but they were no help it was Rocky himself who once said the man who's always offering his advice for nothing ask him about as much as it's worth he seemed to run dry of words like an overdrawn well for several days he took no further notice of me apparently having forgotten my existence or repented his good nature once when in reply to a question I was owning up to the hopes and chances of failures of the day I caught his attentive look turned on me and was conscious of it and was apprehensive for the rest of the evening but nothing happened the following evening however it came out I had felt that the look meant something and that sooner or later I would catch it it was characteristic of him that he could always wait and I never felt quite safe with him never comfortably sure that something was not being saved up for me for some mistakes perhaps days old he was not to be hurried nor was he to be put off his quiet voice was never raised and the lazy gentlemaness never disturbed he seemed to know exactly what he wanted to say and to have opening and attention waiting for him I suppose it was partly because he spoke so seldom but there was something else too the something that was just Rocky himself although the talk appeared the result of accident an instinct told me from the start that it was not really so it was Rocky's slow and considered way the only dog with us was licking a cut on her shoulder the result of an unauthorised rush at a wounded buck and after an examination of her wound we had wandered over the account of how she had got it and so on to discussing the dog herself Rocky sat in silence smoking and looking into the fire and the little discussion was closed by someone saying she's no good for a hunting dog too plucky it was then I saw Rocky's eyes slowly on the last speaker he looked at him thoughtfully for a good minute and then remarked quietly there ain't no such thing as too plucky and with that he stopped almost as if inviting contradiction whether he wanted a reply or not one cannot say, anyway he got none no one took Rocky on unnecessarily and at his leisure he resumed there is brave men and there is fools and you can get some that's both but there's a whole heap that ain't and it's just the same with dogs she's no fool but she ain't been taught that's what's the matter with her men are got to learn dogs too men ain't born equal, no more's dogs one's born better than another more brains, more heart but I ain't yet heard of the man born with knowledge or experience that's why they gotta learn men and dogs the born fools gotta do fools work all the time but the others learn and the brave man with brains has got a big pull he don't get shook up just keeps thinkin' at his job right along while the other fillers worryin' about his hide and dogs is the same Rocky's eyes forever graven thoughtful rested on the fire and the remarks that came from the other men passed unnoticed but they served to keep the subject alive presently he went on again opening with an observation that caused me to move uneasily before there was time to think why boys is like pups you gotta help them some but not too much and not too soon they gotta learn themselves arrogant if a man's never made a mistake he's never had a good lesson if he don't pay for a thing you'd know what it's worth and mistakes is part of the price of knowledge the other part is work but mistakes is the part you don't like pain that's why you remember it you save a boy from makin' mistakes and if he's got good stuff in him most like you spoil it he don't know anything properly cause he don't think and he don't think cause you're saved in the trouble and he never learned how he don't know the meaning of consequences and risks cause you keep him off him and by and by he gets to believe it's born in him to go right and knows everything and can't go wrong and if things don't pan out in the end he reckons it's just bad luck no sorry if he's got swim you let him know right there that the ward's deep and there ain't no one to hole him up and if he don't wade in and learn it's going to be his funeral my eyes were all for Rocky but he was not looking my way and when the next remark came and my hot jumped and my hands and feet moved to there in the cord his face was turned quite away from me towards the man on his left and it's just the same thing with Hampton it looks so blamed easy he reckons it don't need any teaching well let him try leave him on his own till his boots is walked off and he's like to sit down and cry if he wasn't ashamed to let him know every particular sort of bland fool he can make of himself and then he's fit to teach cause he'll listen and watch and learn and say thank you for it mostly you got to make a fool of yourself once or twice to know what it feels like and how to avoid it best do it young, it teaches a boy but it kind of breaks a man up I kept my eyes on Rocky avoiding the others fearing that a look or word might tempt someone to rub it in and it was a relief when the old man naturally and easily picked up his original point and turning another look on Jess said it got a begin on the pot it ain't her fault it's yours she's full up of the right stuff but she got no show to learn dogs is all different good and bad just like men some learns quick some will never learn but there ain't any too plucky he tossed a chip of green wood into the heart of the fire and washed it's spirtle and smoke and after quite a long pause added there's times when a dog's got to see it through and be killed that's his duty same as a man's I've seen it done the last words were added with a narrowing of its eyes and a curious softening of his voice as a personal affection or regret others noticed it too and in reply to a question as to how it happened Rocky explained in a few words that a wounded buffalo had way-laid and tossed the man over its back and as it turned again to gore him the dog rushed in between fighting it off for a time and eventually went on to the nose when the buffalo's door pushed on the cheque enabled the man to reach his gun and shoot the buffalo but the dog was trampled to death were you someone began and then at the look in Rocky's face hesitated Rocky staring into the fire answered it was my dog long after the other men were asleep I lay in my blankets watching the tricks of light and shadow played by the fire as fitfully it flamed or died away it showed the long prostrate figures of the others as they slipped full stretch on their backs wrapped in dark blankets the wagons touched with unwanted colours by the flames and softened to ghostly shadows when they died the oxen sleeping contentedly at their yokes Rocky's two donkeys black and grey tethered under a thorn tree now and then a long ear moving slowly to some distant sound and dropping back again satisfied I could not sleep sleeping like a babe he gaunt and spare 6 foot 2 he must have stood weather beaten and old with the long solitary trip before him and 60 odd years of life behind he slept when he laid his head down and was wide awake and rested when he raised it he who had been through it all slept but I who had only listened was haunted bewitched possessed by racing thoughts and all on account of four words my dog it was still dark with a faint promise of saffron in the east when I felt a hand on my shoulder and heard Rocky's voice saying come on along sonny one of the drivers raised his head to look at us as we passed and then called to his furloper to turn the cattle loose to graze and drop back to sleep we left them so and salied out into the pure clear morning while all the world was still while the air cold and subtly stimulating put a spring into the step and an extra beat or two into the pulse fairly rinsing lungs and eyes and brain what is there to tell of that day why nothing really nothing except that it was a happy day a day of little things that all went well and so it came to look like the birthday of the hunting what did it matter to me that we were soaked through in ten minutes for the dew weighed down the heavy topped grass with clusters of crystal drops that looked like diamond sprays it was all too beautiful for words and so it should be in the springtime of youth rocky was different that day he showed me things reading the book of nature that I could not understand he pointed out the spores going to and from the drinking place and named the various animals showed me one more deeply indented than the rest and murmuring scared I guess and pointed to where dashed off out of the regular track picked up the big splayed pad of the hyena sneaking round under cover stopped quietly in his stride to point where a hare was sitting up cleaning itself not ten yards off stopped again at the sound of a clear almost metallic clink and pointed to the little sandy gully in front of us down which presently came thirty or forty guinea file in single file moving swiftly running and walking and all in absolute silence except for that one clink how did he know they were there and which way they would go and know it all so promptly were questions I asked myself we walked in the sun that is towards the west so that the light would show up the game and be in their eyes making it more difficult for them to see us we watched a little red stem but get up from his form his coat stretch himself and then pick his way daintily through the wet grass nibbling here and there as he went rocky did not fire he wanted something better after the sun had risen flooding the whole country with golden light and while the dew lasted making it glisten like a bespangled transformation scene we came on a patch of old long grass and parted by some twenty yards walked through it abreast there was a wild rush from under my feet a yellowish body dashed through the grass and I got out in time to see a writ buck ram cantering away then Rocky beside me gave a shrill whistle the buck stopped side on looked back at us and Rocky dropped it where it stood instantly following the shot there was another rush on our left and before the second writ buck had gone thirty yards Rocky toppled it over in its traps from the whistle to the second shot it was all done in about ten seconds to me it looked like magic I could only gas we cleaned the bucks and hid them in a bush there was meat enough for the camp then and I thought we would return at once for boys to carry it but Rocky after a moment's glance ran showed at his rifle and moved on again I following asking no questions we had been gone only a few minutes went to my great astonishment he stopped and pointing straight in front asked why had you put up for that stump I looked hard and answered confidently 200 step it was his reply and I paced the distance it was 82 yards it was very bewildering but he helped me out a bit with bush telescope sunny you mean it magnifies them I asked in surprise no, magnifies the distance like looking down an avenue gun barrel looks a mile long open flats brings them closer and cross water or a gully seems like you can put your hand on it I would have missed by feet that time Rocky you can take it for a start carve the distance and aim low aim low as well there's always some in low legs and ground to show what you're done but there's no outers marked on the sky once as we walked along he paused to look at some freshly overturned ground and dropped the one word peg we turned them to the right and presently came upon some playground densely covered with tall green reeds he slowed down as we approached I tipped her in sympathy and when only a few yards off he stopped and beckoned me on and as I came abreast he raised his hand in mourning and pointed into the reeds there was a curious subdued sort of murmur of many deep voices it conveys no idea of the fact to say there were grunts they were softened out of all recognition there's only one word for it they sounded confidential then as we listened I could make out the softly silky rustling of the rich undergrowth and presently could follow by the quivering and waving of odd reeds the movement of the animals themselves there were only a few odds from us the nearest four or five they were busy and contented it was obvious they were utterly unconscious as we peered down to the reeds from our greater height it seemed that we could see the ground and that not so much as a rat could have passed unnoticed yet we saw nothing and then without the slightest sign cause or warning that I could detect in one instant every sound ceased I watched the reeds like a cat on the pass never a stir or sign or sound they had vanished I turned to Rocky who was standing at ease and there was the faintest look of amusement in his eyes they must be there they came, they've got away it was a sort of indignant protest against his evident chucking it but it was full of doubt all the same try, he said and I jumped into the reed straight away the under foliage, it was true was thicker and deeper than it looked but for all that it was like a cundering trick they were not there I waded through a hundred yards or more of the narrow belt it was not more than twenty yards wide anywhere but the place was deserted it struck me then that if they could dodge us at five to ten yards while we were watching them from the bank and they did not know it well, I chucked it too Rocky was standing in the same place with the same faint look of friendly amusement when I got back wet and muddy pigs is like that, he said same as elephants, just disappears we went on again and a quarter of an hour later it may be, Rocky stopped subsided to a sitting position beckoned to me and pointed with his level rifle in front, it was a couple of minutes before he could get me to see the stem buck standing in the shade of a thorn tree I would never have seen it but for his whisper to look for something moving that gave it to me I saw the movement of the head as it cropped high right was Rocky's comment as the bullet ripped the bark of a tree and the startled stem buck raced away in the excitement I had forgotten his advice already but there was no time to feel sick and disgusted the buck puzzled by the report on one side and the smash on the tree on the other half circled us and stopped to look back Rocky laid his hand on my shoulder take your time sonny, he said aim low and don't pull squeeze and at last I got it we had our breakfast there the liver roasted on the pearls and a couple of dough boys with the unexpected addition of a bottle of cold tea weak and unsweetened produced from Rocky's knapsack we stayed there a couple of hours and that is the only time he really opened out I understood then at last that of his deliberate kindness he had come out that morning meaning to make a happy day of it for a youngster and he did he had the knack of getting at the heart of things and putting it all in the fewest words he spoke in the same slow grave way with habitual economy of breath and words and yet the pictures were living in real and each incident complete I seemed to get from him that morning all there was to know of the hunting in two great continents Grizzlies and other bar Moose and Duapiti hunted in the snows of the north west Elephant buffalo rhino lions and scores more in the sweltering heat of Africa that was a happy day when I woke up next morning Rocky was fitting the packs on his donkeys I was a little puzzled wondering at first if he was testing the saddles for he had said nothing about moving on but when he joined us at breakfast the donkeys stood packed ready to start then Robbie asked going to make a move Rocky yes reckon I'll get he answered quietly I ate in silence what he was to face many hundreds of miles perhaps a thousand or two many many months maybe a year or two wild country wild tribes and wild beasts floods and fever accident hunger and disease and alone when we had finished breakfast he rinsed out his beaker and hung it on one of the packs slung his rifle over his shoulder and picking up his long Essigai wood walking stick tapped the donkeys lightly into the cap of footpath that led away north they jogged on into place in single file Rocky paused a second before following turning one brief grave glance on us and said well so long he never came back End of Chapter 2 Chapter 3 of Jock of the Bushvelts 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 Jock of the Bushvelts by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick Chapter 3 Jess Good dogs were not easy to get I had tried hard enough for one before starting but without success even unborn puppies had jealous prospective owners waiting to claim them there is always plenty of room at the top of the tree and good hunting dogs were as were as good men, good horses and good front oxen a lot of qualities are needed in the makeup of a good hunting dog size, strength, quickness scent, sense and speed and plenty of courage they are very very difficult to get but even small dogs are useful and many of fine feet stands to the credit of little terriers in guarding camps at night and in standing off wounded animals that meant mischief Denison was saved from a wounded lioness by his two fox terriers he had gone out to shoot bush pheasants and came unexpectedly on a lioness playing with her cubs the cubs hid in the grass but she stood up at bay to protect them and he forgetting that he had taken the big leopard cartridges from his gun and reloaded with number 6, fired the shot only maddened her and she charged but the two dogs dashed at her, one at each side, barking snapping and yelling, rushing in and jumping back so fast and furiously that they flustered her leaving the man for the moment she turned on them, dabbing viciously with her huge paws, first at one then at the other, quicker lightning she struck right and left as a kitten will at a twirled string but they kept out of reach it only lasted seconds but that was long enough for the man to reload and shoot the lioness through the heart there was only one dog in our camp and she was not an attractive one she was a bull terrier with a dial brindled coat, black and grey in shadowy stripes, she had small cross looking eyes and uncertain always moving ears she was bad tempered and most unsociable but she was as faithful and as brave a dog as ever lived she never barked, never hard when beaten for biting strangers or cappers or going for the cattle she was very silent, very savage and very quick she belonged to my friend Ted and never left his side day or night her name was Jess Jess was not a favourite but everyone respected her partly because you knew she would not stand any nonsense, no pushing, patting or punishment and very little talking to and partly because she was so faithful and plucky she was not a hunting dog but on several occasions had helped to pull down wounded game, she had no knowledge or skill and was only fierce and brave and there was always the risk that she would be killed she would listen to Ted but to no one else, one of us might have shouted his lungs out but it would not have stopped her from giving chase the moment she saw anything and keeping on till she was too dead beat to move any further, the first time I saw Jess we were having dinner and I gave her a bone putting it down close to her and saying here good dog as she did not even look at it, I moved it right under her nose she gave a low growl and her little eyes turned on me for just one look as she got up and walked away there was a snigger of laughter from some of the others but nobody said anything and it seemed wiser to ask no questions just then afterwards when we were alone one of them told me Ted had trained her not to feed from anyone else adding you must not feed another man's dog, a dog has only one master we respected Jess greatly but no one knew quite how much we respected her until the memorable day near Ship Mountain we had rested through the heat of the day under a big tree on the bank of a little stream it was the tree under which salt care prayed and died about sundown just before we were ready to start some other wagons passed and Ted knowing the owner went on with them intending to rejoin us at the next outspan as he jumped onto the passing wagon he called to Jess and she ran out of a patch of soft grass under one of the big trees behind our wagons she answered his call instantly but when she saw him moving off onto the other wagon she sat down in the road and watched him anxiously for some seconds then ran on a few steps in her curious quick silent way and again stopped giving swift blances alternatively towards Ted and towards us Ted remarked laughingly that she evidently thought he had made a mistake by getting on the wrong wagon and that she would follow presently after he had disappeared she ran back to her patch of grass and lay down but in a few minutes she was back again squatting in the road looking with that same anxious worried expression after her master that she went to and fro for the quarter of an hour it took us to inspan and each time she passed we could hear a faint anxious little whine the oxen were inspanned the last odd things were being put up when one of the boys came to say that he could not get the guns in water barrel because Jess would not let him near them there was something the matter with the dog he said he thought she was mad knowing how Jess hated caffers we laughed at the notion and went for the things ourselves as we came within five yards of the tree where we had left the guns there was a rustle in the grass and Jess came out with her swift silent run appearing as unexpectedly as a snake does and with some odd suggestion of a snake in her look and attitude her head body and tail were in a deadline and she was crouching slightly as for a spring her ears were laid flat back her lips twitching constantly showing the strong white teeth and her cross wicked eyes had such a look of remorseless cruelty in them that we stopped as if we had been turned to stone she never moved a muscle or made a sound but kept those eyes steadily fixed on us we moved back a pace or two and began to coax and weedle her but it was no good she never moved or made a sound and the unblinking look remained for a minute we stood our ground and then the hair on her back and shoulders began very slowly to stand up that was enough we cleared off it was a mighty uncanny appearance then another tried his hand but it was just the same with her no one could get near the guns or the water barrel as soon as we returned for a fresh attempt she reappeared in the same place and in the same way the position was too ridiculous and we were at our wits end for Jess held the camp the caffers declared the dog was mad and we began to have very uncomfortable suspicions that they were right but we decided to make a last attempt and surrounding the place approached from all sides but the suddenness which she appeared before we got into position so demoralized the caffers that they bolted and we gave it up earning ourselves beaten we turned to watch her as she ran back for the last time and as she disappeared in the grass we heard distinctly the cry of a very young puppy then the secret of Jess's madness was out we had to send for Ted and when he returned a couple of hours later Jess met him out on the road in the dark where she had been watching for half the time ever since he left she jumped up at his chest giving him a tremendous whimper of welcome and then ran ahead straight to the nest in the grass he took the lantern and we followed but not too close when he knelt down to look at the puppy she stood over them and pushed herself in between him and them when he put out a hand to touch them she pushed it away with her nose whining softly in protest and trembling with excitement you could see she would not bite to touch her puppies finally when he picked one up she gave a low cry and quarters wrist gently but held it that was Jess, the mother of jock End of Chapter 3