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 father 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 kloofs of the Berg and make descents
upon the Kaffir 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
kloof, and the possibility of coming across a lion never entered their
heads. No notice was taken of smaller game put up from time to time as
they moved carelessly along; a rustle on the left of the line was
ignored, and Bill Saunderson was as surprised as Bill ever could be to
see a 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.
"It was a bad shot," he said afterwards, in answer to the beginner's
breathless questions. "He wasn't hurt: just sank a little like a
pointer when you check him; but before he steadied up again I took for
the nose and got him. You see," he added thoughtfully, "a lion's got no
forehead: it is all hair."
That was about all he had to say; but, 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 crouching 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
Riband 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 recognised the hungry enthusiasm and his own
inability to satisfy it. The skin with the grazed stripe along the
nose, and the broken skull, were handled and looked at many times, and
the story was pumped from every Kaffir--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, conversation strayed to
other subjects, it seemed waste of time and priceless opportunity. Bob
responded good-naturedly to many crude attempts to head 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; for
when all the pet subjects of the road had been thrashed out, and it was
about time to turn in, a stray question brought the reward of patience.
"Have you heard if Jim reached Durban all right?"
"Yes! Safely shipped."
"You got some one to take him right through?"
"No! A Dutchman took him to Lydenburg, and I got Tom Hardy, going 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 he got
the cattle up. But they tell me there was a gay jamboree when it came
to inspanning; and as soon as they got up to the other waggons and the
young bullocks winded Jim, they started off with their tails up--a
regular stampede, voorloopers and drivers yelling like mad, all the
loose things shaking out of the waggons, 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 misgiving--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 Dabulamanzi.
Jim, my hunting boy, caught him, so we call him Jim out of compliment,"
he added with a grin. "But Jim called him Dabulamanzi, 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, "Dabulamanzi, 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 exclaimed: "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 her; 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 after one of them, a cub about as big as a
Newfoundland dog--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
Komati, 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,
and Jim after it. 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 in it. Then Jim got hold of it by the tail and swam back to us,
still shouting and quite 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 to-day?" I asked, as soon as there was an opening. Bob
shook his head with a kindly regretful smile. "No, Sonny, not here;
you'd 'a' heard him. Jim's gone. I had to sack him. A real fine
nigger, but a terror to drink, and always in trouble. He fairly wore me
right out."
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. It was our holiday
time, before the hard work with loads would commence, and we dawdled
along feeding up the cattle and taking it easy ourselves.
It was too early for loads in the Bay, so we moved slowly and hunted on
the way, sometimes camping for several days in places where grass and
water were good; and that lion skin was the cause of many
disappointments to me. Never a bush or ant-heap, never a donga 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 sheer bad
luck! It is difficult to believe you have made mistakes when you do not
know enough to recognise them, and have no extent your own ignorance;
and then bad luck is such an easy and such a flattering explanation! If
I did not go so far on the easy road of excuse-making as to put all the
failures down to bad luck, perhaps some one else deserves the credit.
One evening as we were lounging round the camp fire, Robbie, failing to
find a soft 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; O cursed spite, That ever I was born to set
it right."
We knew Robbie's way. There were times when he would spout 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 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 favourite. Only old Rocky maintained his usual gravity.
As Robbie settled down again in comfort, the old man remarked in level
thoughtful tones: "I reckon the feller as said that was a waster, he
chucked it!" There was a short pause in which I, in 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 drawled out. "`Jus'
my 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."
"I da' say; they mostly can. But a man as sets 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's wrong: it's the man! It ain't the job's
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 thar's no such thing as luck--good and bad; but it ain't
the explanation o' success an' failure--not by a long way. No, sirree,
luck's just the thing any man'd like ter believe is the reason for his
failure and another feller's success. But it ain't so. When another
man pulls off what you don't, the first thing you got ter believe is
it's your own fault; and the last, it's his luck. And you jus' got ter
wade in an' find out whar you went wrong, an' put it right, 'thout any
excuses an' explanations."
"But, Rocky, explanations aren't always excuses, and sometimes you
really have to give them!"
"Sonny, you kin reckon it dead sure thar's something wrong 'bout a thing
that don't explain itself; an' one explanation's as bad as two
mistakes--it don't fool anybody worth speaking of, 'cept yerself. 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 fellows 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 ef that sharp o' your'n hed ter 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 wretched wrong-headed stembuck 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 Zambesi, it was whispered--but no one knew
where or why. He was going off alone, with two pack-donkeys and not
even a 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-star: 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 outspans in the Bush and
offered a lift for him and his packs he accepted and joined us, it being
still a bit early to attempt crossing the rivers with pack-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 movements, making it difficult for any one else to follow his
line and watch him. Anyway, he joined us in the way of those days: that
is, we travelled 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 brought what game he got and threw it into the common stock.
The secret of agreement in the veld is--complete independence! Points
of contact are points of friction--nowhere more so; and the safest plan
is, each man his own outfit and each free to feed or sleep or trek as
and 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 it was known
to few besides the Mining Commissioner's clerk who registered his
licences from time to time. "In the Rockies whar 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 Colt's 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 Yuba Bill of
cherished memory; and then the inevitable question got itself asked:
"Did you ever shoot a man, Rocky?"
"No, Sonny," he drawled gently, "never hed ter use it yet!"
"It looks very old. Have you had it long?"
"Jus' 'bout thirty years, I reckon!"
"Oh! Seems a long time to carry a thing without using it!"
"Waal," he answered half absently, "thet's so. It's a thing you don't
want orfen--but when you do, you want it derned bad!"
Rocky seemed to me to have stepped into our life out of the pages of
Bret Harte. For me the glamour of romance was cast by the Master's
spell over all that world, and no doubt helped to make old Rocky
something of a hero in the eyes of youth; but such help was of small
account, for the cardinal fact was Rocky himself. He was a man.
There 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 flavour clung to him unchanged. He was silent by
habit and impossible to draw; not helpful to those who looked for short
cuts, 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 round the fire at nights, his face
grave, weather-stained and wrinkled, with clear grey 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 prospector's 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 ideal 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 a `lone hand' and playing it fair in all conditions, treading
the unbeaten tracks, finding his triumph in his work, always moving on
and contented so to end: the crown, "He was a man!"--then surely Rocky's
had achieved success!
That is Rocky, as remembered now! A bit idealised? Perhaps so: but who
can say! In truth he had his sides and the defects of his qualities,
like every one else; and it was not every one 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 drawl, the
steady something in his clear calm eyes which I cannot define, gave an
almost corrosive effect to innocent words and a voice of lazy
gentleness.
"What's the best thing to do following up a wounded buffalo?" was the
question. The questions sprung briskly, as only a `yapper' puts them;
and the answers came like reluctant drops from a filter. "Git out!"
"Yes, but if there isn't time?"
"Say yer prayers!"
"No--seriously--what is the best way of tackling one?"
"Ef yer wawnt to know, thar's only one way: Keep cool and shoot
straight!"
"Oh! of course--_if you can_?"
"An' ef you can't," he added in fool-killer tones, "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 rarely 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 yer eyes open and yer 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 notable 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 me and said, "On'y the born fools stays fools. You'll git
ter learn bymbye; you ain't always yappin'!"
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, "Comin' along, Boy?"
Surprise and gratitude must have produced a touch of effusiveness which
jarred on him; for, to the eager exclamation and thanks, he made no
answer--just moved on, leaving me to follow. In his scheme of life
there was `no call to slop 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, and as we walked silently along
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 cheerily 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 useter goin' round like a dawg with a tin it ain't any
wonder you seen nothin'. You got ter walk soft an' keep yer head shut!"
In reply to my apology he said that there was "no bell an' curtain in
this yere play; you got ter be thar waitin'."
Rocky knew better than I did the extent of his good nature; he knew that
in all probability it meant a wasted 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 others talk;
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; but 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, wind and surroundings, and addressed a remark to me
in ordinary tones, I was hopelessly at sea. His manner showed that some
possibility was disposed of and some idea abandoned. Once he said
"Rietbuck! Heard us I reckon," and then turned off at a right-angle;
but a little later on he pointed to other spoor and, indifferently
dropping the one word `Koodoo,' continued straight on. To me the two
spoors seemed equally fresh; he saw hours'--perhaps a whole day's--
difference between them. That the rietbuck, scared by us, had gone
ahead and was keenly on the watch for us and therefore not worth
following, and that the koodoo 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 spoor and began to palpitate
with thoughts of bagging a koodoo bull.
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. I was feeling very pleased
with myself and confident of the result; the stumbling over stones and
stumps had ceased; and there was no more 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 koodoo 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 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 ant-heap--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 ant-heap, and
I stepped right on to 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:
"You'd oughter brought some fire crackers!" If only he had sworn at me
it would have been endurable.
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 what he was aiming at. Then the shot
rang out, and a duiker 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 was it possible
I had not seen the buck until it fell? Rocky must have known what was
worrying me, for, after we had picked up the buck, he remarked without
any preliminary, "It ain't easy in this bush ter pick up what don't
move; an' it ain't hardly possible ter find what ye don't know!"
"Game you mean?" I asked, somewhat puzzled.
"This one was feeding," he answered, after a nod in reply. "I saw his
head go up ter listen; but when they don't move, an' you don't jus' know
what they look like, you kin 'most walk atop o' them. You got ter kind
o' shape 'em in yer eye, an' when you got that fixed you kin pick 'em up
'most 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 that "the man who's allus offerin' his advice fer nothin'
's askin' 'bout's much's 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 and failures of the day, I caught his attentive look turned
on me and was conscious of it--and a little apprehensive--for the rest
of the evening; but nothing happened.
The following evening however it came out. I had felt that that 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 mistake perhaps days old. He was not to be hurried,
nor was he to be put off, and nobody ever interrupted him or headed him
off. His quiet voice was never raised, and the lazy gentleness 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 some one
saying, "She's no good for a hunting dog--too plucky!" It was then I
saw Rocky's eyes turned slowly on the last speaker: he looked at him
thoughtfully for a good minute, and then remarked quietly:
"Thar ain't no sich 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:
"Thar's brave men; an' thar's fools; an' you kin get some that's both.
But thar's a whole heap that ain't! An' it's jus' the same with dawgs.
She's no fool, but she ain't been taught: that's what's the matter with
her. Men ha' got ter larn: dawgs too! Men ain't born equal: no more's
dawgs! One's born better 'n another--more brains, more heart; but I
ain't yet heard o' the man born with knowledge or experience; that's
what they got ter learn--men an' dawgs! The born fool's got to do
fool's work all the time: but the others larn; and the brave man with
brains 's got a big pull. He don't get shook up--jus' keeps on thinkin'
out his job right along, while the other feller's worryin' about his
hide! An' dawgs is the same."
Rocky's eyes--for ever grave and 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 got ter help 'em some; but not too much, an' not
too soon. They got ter larn themselves. I reckon ef a man's never made
a mistake he's never had a good lesson. Ef you don't pay for a thing
you don't know what it's worth; and mistakes is part o' the price o'
knowledge--the other part is work! But mistakes is the part you don't
like payin': thet's why you remember it. You save a boy from makin'
mistakes and ef 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 saved him the trouble an' he never learned how! He don't
know the meanin' o' consequences and risks, 'cause you kep' 'em off him!
An' bymbye he gets ter believe it's born in him ter go right, an' knows
everything, an' can't go wrong; an' ef things don't pan out in the end
he reckon it's jus' bad luck! No! Sirree! Ef he's got ter swim you
let him know right there that the water's deep an' thar ain't no one to
hol' him up, an' ef he don't wade in an' larn, it's goin' ter be his
funeral!"
My eyes were all for Rocky, but he was not looking my way, and when the
next remark came, and my heart jumped and my hands and feet moved of
their own accord, his face was turned quite away from me towards the man
on his left.
"An' it's jus' the same 'ith huntin'! It looks so blamed easy he
reckons it don't need any teachin'. Well, let him try! Leave him run
on his own till his boots is walked off an' he's like to set down and
cry, ef he wasn't 'shamed to; let him know every pur-tickler sort o'
blamed fool he can make of himself; an' then he's fit ter teach, 'cause
he'll listen, an' watch, an' learn--at? say thank ye fer it! Mostly you
got ter make a fool o' yourself once or twice ter know what it feels
like an' how t' avoid it: best do it young--it teaches a boy; but it
kind o' breaks a man up!"
I kept my eyes on Rocky, avoiding the others, fearing that a look or
word might tempt some one 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:
"You got ter begin on the pup. It ain't her fault; it's yours. She's
full up o' the right stuff, but she got no show to larn! Dawgs is all
different, good an' bad--just like men: some larns quick; some'll never
larn. But thar ain't any too plucky!"
He tossed a chip of green wood into the heart of the fire and watched it
spurtle and smoke, and after quite a long pause, added:
"Thar's times when a dawg's got to see it through an' be killed. It's
his dooty--same as a man's. I seen it done!"
The last words were added with a narrowing of his eyes and a curious
softening of voice--as of personal affection or regret. Others noticed
it too; and in reply to a question as to how it had happened Rocky
explained in a few words that a wounded buffalo had waylaid 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 fastening on to
the nose when the buffalo still pushed on. The check enabled the man to
reach his gun and shoot the buffalo; but the dog was trampled to death.
"Were you...?" some one began--and then at the look in Rocky's face,
hesitated. Rocky, staring into the fire, answered:
"It was my dawg!"
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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
slept full stretch on their backs, wrapped in dark blankets; the
waggons, touched with unwonted 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; but Rocky was
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 sixty 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, and the way he said them, "It was my dawg."
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, "Comin'
along, Sonny?"
One of the drivers raised his head to look at us as we passed, and then
called to his voorlooper to turn the cattle loose to graze, and dropped
back to sleep. We left them so and sallied 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 spring-time of youth.
Rocky was different that day. He showed me things; reading the open
book of nature that I could not understand. He pointed out the spoors
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," pointed to where it had dashed off out of the regular track;
picked out 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 a little sandy gully in
front of us down which presently came thirty or forty guinea-fowl 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 with 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 stembuck get up from his
form, shake the dew from 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 rietbuck 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 rietbuck had gone
thirty yards Rocky toppled it over in its tracks. From the whistle to
the second shot it was all done in about ten seconds. To me it looked
like magic. I could only gasp.
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 round, shouldered his rifle and
moved on again. I followed, asking no questions. We had been gone only
a few minutes when to my great astonishment he stopped and pointing
straight in front asked:
"What 'ud you put up for that stump?" I looked hard, and answered
confidently, "Two hundred!"
"Step it!" was his reply. I paced the distance; it was eighty-two
yards.
It was very bewildering; but he helped me out a bit with "Bush
telescopes, Sonny!"
"You mean it magnifies them?" I asked in surprise. "No! Magnifies the
distance, like lookin' down an avenue! Gun barr'l looks a mile long
when you put yer eye to it! Open flats brings 'em closer; and 'cross
water or a gully seems like you kin put yer hand on 'em?"
"I would have missed--by feet--that time Rocky!"
"You kin take it fer a start, Halve the distance and aim low!"
"Aim low, as well?"
"Thar's allus somethin' low: legs, an' ground to show what you done!
But thar'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, `Pig.' We turned then to the right
and presently came upon some vlei ground densely covered with tall green
reeds. 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. There
was a curious subdued sort of murmur of many deep voices. It conveys no
idea of the fact to say they were grunts. They were softened out of all
recognition: there is only one word for it, they sounded `confidential.'
Then as we listened I could make out the soft silky rustling of the
rich undergrowth, and presently, could follow, by the quivering and
waving of odd reeds, the movements of the animals themselves. They were
only a few yards from us--the nearest four or five; they were busy and
contented; and it was obvious they were utterly unconscious of our
presence. 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 pounce: never a stir or sign or sound: they had vanished. I
turned to Rocky: he was standing at ease, and there was the faintest
look of amusement in his eyes.
"They must be there; they can't have 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 reeds straight away. The
under-foliage, it is true, was thicker and deeper than it had looked;
but for all that it was like a conjuring 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 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--jus' 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 levelled rifle in front. It was a couple of minutes before he
could get me to see the stembuck 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 off a
tree and the startled stembuck 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; an' _don't full! Squeeze_!"
And at last I got it.
We had our breakfast there--the liver roasted on the coals, 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 kindliness he had come
out that morning meaning to make a happy day of it for a youngster; and
he did it.
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 and 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 Wapiti, 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 git!" he answered quietly.
I ate in silence, thinking of what he was to face: many hundreds of
miles--perhaps a thousand or two; many, many months--may be 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 assegai-wood walking-stick tapped the donkeys lightly to turn them
into the Kaffir footpath that led away North. They jogged on into place
in single file.
Rocky paused a second before following, turned one brief grave glance on
us, and said!
"Well. So long!"
He never came back!