It had just missed him, passing under his stomach next to the hind legs; but, until he dropped with a thud and, tearing and scrambling to his feet, he raced in again, I felt certain he had been gored through. He slowed down as we approached; I tip-toed 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 warning and pointed into the reeds. Nearly every one who goes hunting in the Bushveld gets lost some time or other—generally in the beginning before he has learned to notice things. The first thing that struck me was that in the deep water my rifle was worth no more than a walking-stick, and not nearly as useful as an assegai; but what drove this and many other thoughts from my mind in a second was the appearance of Jock on the stage and his sudden jump into the leading place. There, in the deep cleft in the rocks where the feeding spring, cool and constant, had trickled down a smooth black rock beneath another overhanging slab, and where ferns and mosses had clustered in one little spot in all the miles of blistering rocks, there was nothing left but mud and slime. We were generally a party of half a dozen—the owners of the four waggons, a couple of friends trading with Delagoa, a man from Swaziland, and—just then—an old Yankee hunter-prospector. “My nerves won’t stand it!”, 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.”. We had been out perhaps an hour, and by unceasing watchfulness I had learnt many things: they were about as well learnt and as useful as a sentence in a foreign tongue got off by heart; but to me they seemed the essentials and the fundamentals of hunting. Knowing how the long stem of a neck will catch the eye, it lays it flat on the ground, as other birds do, when danger threatens the nest or brood, and concealment is better than flight. 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. I have seen a wildebeeste effectually hidden by a single blighted branch; a koodoo bull, by a few twisty sticks; a crouching lion, by a wisp of feathery grass no higher than one’s knee, no bigger than a vase of flowers! To the other boys he was what his nature and training had made him—not really a bully, but masterful and over-riding. It was a little spell before his lips would smile, and eyes and voice were firm enough to lie. On the second occasion they had enticed him on to the waggon and, as he lay half unconscious between bursts of delirium, had tied him down flat on his back, with wrists and ankles fastened to the buck-rails. 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 reeds silently and gently parting and closing again as something down below works its way along without the faintest sound, the place seems too quiet, too uncanny and mysterious, too silent, stealthy and treacherous for you to sit still in comfort: you must get up and do something. I had known all about the vicious brute, and had often heard of Seedling’s fiendish delight in arranging fights or enticing dogs up to attack it for the pleasure of seeing the beast kill the over-matched dogs. And he knew the power of the Great White Queen and the way that her people fight. Rocky did not fire; he wanted something better. MEERKAT (d), a small animal of the mongoose kind (properly applied to Suricata tetradactyla, but loosely to several species). Kill him, Jock! In that seething rabble I could pick out nothing, but all the kaffirs maintained they could see the mauled one dragged along by its arms by two others, much as a child might be helped uphill. Charlie dropped his whip quietly and outspanned the ox and its mate, saying to me as I gave him a hand: “When I strike a rotter, I chuck him out before he spoils the others!” In another ten minutes he and his stalwarts had left us behind. That was the “mark of the beast.” I knew then why this oasis had been left by transport-rider and trekker, as nature made it, untrodden and untouched. 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 then. Among a certain number of the white men—of the sort who never can get any name right—he was oddly enough known as McCorkindale. Have you had it long?”, “Oh! I turned towards that Go ’way bird. 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 me and said, “On’y the born fools stays fools. We had not touched fresh meat for many days, as there had been no time for shooting; but I knew that game was plentiful across the river in the rough country between the Kaap and Crocodile, and I started off to make the best of the day’s delay, little dreaming that it was to be the last time Jock and I would hunt together. The title might state: "Jock", but listening it to it today, I almost want to "retitle" it. It was a delightful field for naturalist and artist, but unfortunately we thought little of such things, and knew even less; and now nothing is left from all the glorious opportunities but the memory of an endless fascination and a few facts that touch the human chord and will not submit to be forgotten. Black densely-timbered kloofs broke the edge of the plateau into a long series of projecting turrets, in some places cutting far in, deep crevices into which the bigger waterfalls plunged and were lost. Childhood memories and annual traditions. One shot, out of three or four fired in desperation as they were melting away, hit something; the unmistakable thud of the bullet told me so. “Is it as I told you? 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 koodoo he started yelling, war-whooping and swearing at them, chasing them on foot and waving his rifle over his head. I think he loved them too; at any rate, it was his care for them that day—handling them himself instead of leaving it to his boys—that killed him. 4.0 out of 5 stars JOCK OF THE BUSHVELD. The evil-looking half-caste no doubt hoped to get the horse saddle and bridle, as well as the cash, and was quite prepared to drug Seedling when the time came, and slip him quietly into the Komati at night where the crocodiles would take care of the evidence. But at last even his help was not enough: we had come to the end of the chase, and not a spoor, scratch, or sign of any sort was to be seen. Unfortunately he looked round just as a scared face peered cautiously over the top of an ant-heap. As jy vanoggend gou spring eet jy filet die Kersfees. In a gallop after game he was much faster than Snowball, having a wonderfully long stride for so low a pony. Jock was still holding on grimly, tugging with all his might and always with the same movement of swinging it round him, or, of himself circling round it—perhaps that is the fairer description, for the porcupine was much the heavier. I suppose it was partly because he spoke so seldom: but there was something else too—the something that was just Rocky himself. A rough flannel shirt, open at the throat, and moleskin trousers dyed with coffee—for khaki was unknown to us then—was the usual wear; and we carried as little as possible. I tested that by pushing on further along the track we were following, and it held steadily to the west. 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