jock was lost twice: that is to say, he was lost to me, and, as i thought, for ever. it came about both times through his following up wounded animals and leaving me behind, and happened in the days when our hunting was all done on foot; when i could afford a horse and could keep pace with him that difficulty did not trouble us. the experience with the impala had made me very careful not to let him go unless i felt sure that the game was hard hit and that he would be able to pull it down or bay it. but it is not always easy to judge that. a broken leg shows at once; but a body shot is very difficult to place, and animals shot through the lungs, and even through the lower part of the heart, often go away at a cracking pace and are out of sight in no time, perhaps to keep it up for miles, perhaps to drop dead within a few minutes.
after that day with the impala we had many good days together and many hard ones: we had our disappointments, but we had our triumphs; and we were both getting to know our way about by degrees. buck of many kinds had fallen to us; but so far as i was concerned there was one disappointment that was not to be forgotten. the picture of that koodoo bull as he appeared for the last time looking over the ant-heap the day we were lost was always before me. i could not hear the name or see the spoor of koodoo without a pang of regret and the thought that never again would such a chance occur. koodoo, like other kinds of game, were not to be found everywhere; they favoured some localities more than others, and when we passed through their known haunts chances of smaller game were often neglected in the hope of coming across the koodoo.
i could not give up whole days to hunting—for we had to keep moving along with the waggons all the time—or it would have been easy enough in many parts to locate the koodoo and make sure of getting a good bag. as it was, on three or four occasions we did come across them, and once i got a running shot, but missed. this was not needed to keep my interest in them alive, but it made me keener than ever. day by day i went out always hoping to get my chance, and when at last the chance did come it was quite in accordance with the experience of many others that it was not in the least expected.
the great charm of bushveld hunting is its variety: you never know what will turn up next—the only certainty being that it will not be what you are expecting.
the herd boy came noon to say that there buck feeding among the oxen only a couple of hundred yards away. he had been quite close to it, he said, and it was very tame. game, so readily alarmed by the sight of white men, will often take no notice of natives, allowing them to approach to very close quarters. they are also easily stalked under cover of cattle or horses, and much more readily approached on horseback than on foot. the presence of other animals seems to give them confidence or to excite mild curiosity without alarm, and thus distract attention from the man. in this case the bonny little red-brown fellow was not a bit scared; he maintained his presence of mind admirably; from time to time he turned his head our way and, with his large but shapely and most sensitive ears thrown forward examined us frankly while he moved slightly one way or another so as to keep under cover of the oxen and busily continue his browsing.
in and out among some seventy head of cattle we played hide-and-seek for quite a while—i not daring to fire for fear of hitting one of the bullocks—until at last he found himself manoeuvred out of the troop; and then without giving me a chance he was off into the bush in a few frisky skips. i followed quietly, knowing that as he was on the feed and not scared he would not go far.
moving along silently under good cover i reached a thick scrubby bush and peered over the top of it to search the grass under the surrounding thorn-trees for the little red-brown form. i was looking about low down in the russety grass—for he was only about twice the size of jock, and not easy to spot—when a movement on a higher level caught my eye. it was just the flip of a fly-tickled ear; but it was a movement where all else was still, and instantly the form of a koodoo cow appeared before me as a picture is thrown on a screen by a magic-lantern. there it stood within fifty yards, the soft grey-and-white looking still softer in the shadow of the thorns, but as clear to me—and as still—as a figure carved in stone. the stem of a mimosa hid the shoulders, but all the rest was plainly visible as it stood there utterly unconscious of danger. the tree made a dead shot almost impossible, but the risk of trying for another position was too great, and i fired. the thud of the bullet and the tremendous bound of the koodoo straight up in the air told that the shot had gone home; but these things were for a time forgotten in the surprise that followed. at the sound of the shot twenty other koodoo jumped into life and sight before me. the one i had seen and shot was but one of a herd all dozing peacefully in the shade, and strangest of all, it was the one that was farthest from me. to the right and left of this one, at distances from fifteen to thirty yards from me, the magnificent creatures had been standing, and i had not seen them; it was the flicker of this one’s ear alone that had caught my eye. my bewilderment was complete when i saw the big bull of the herd start off twenty yards on my right front pass away like a streak in a few sweep-strides. it was a matter of seconds and they were all out of sight—all except the wounded one, which had turned off from the others. for all the flurry and confusion i had not lost sight of her, and noting her tucked-up appearance and shortened strides set jock on her trail, believing that she would be down in a few minutes.
it is not necessary to go over it all again: it was much the same as the impala chase. i came back tired, disappointed and beaten, and without jock. it was only after darkness set in that things began to look serious. when it came to midnight, with the camp wrapped in silence and in sleep, and there was still no sign of jock, things looked very black indeed.
i heard his panting breath before it was possible to see anything. it was past one o’clock when he returned.
as we had missed the night trek to wait for jock i decided to stay on where we were until the next evening and to have another try for the wounded koodoo, with the chance of coming across the troop again.
by daybreak jock did not seem much the worse for his night’s adventures—whatever they were. there were no marks of blood on him this time; there were some scratches which might have been caused by thorns during the chase, and odd-looking grazes on both hind quarters near the hip-bones, as though he had been roughly gravelled there. he seemed a little stiff, and flinched when i pressed his sides and muscles, but he was as game as ever when he saw the rifle taken down.
the koodoo had been shot through the body, and even without being run to death by jock must have died in the night, or have lain down and become too cold and stiff to move. if not discovered by wild animals there was a good chance of finding it untouched in the early morning; but after sunrise every minute’s delay meant fresh risk from the aasvogels. there is very little which, if left uncovered, will escape their eyes. you may leave your buck for help to bring the meat in, certain from the most careful scrutiny that there is not one of these creatures in sight, and return in half an hour to find nothing but a few bones, the horns and hoofs, a rag of skin, and a group of disgusting gorged vultures squatting on a patch of ground all smeared, torn and feather-strewn from their voracious struggles.
in the winter sky unrelieved by the least fleck of cloud—a dome of spotless polished steel—nothing, you would think, can move unseen. yet they are there. in the early morning, from their white-splashed eeries on some distant mountain they slide off like a launching ship into their sea of blue, and, striking the currents of the upper air, sweep round and upwards in immense circles, their huge motionless wings carrying them higher and higher until they are lost to human sight. lie on your back in some dense shade where no side-lights strike in, but where an opening above forms a sort of natural telescope to the sky, and you may see tiny specks where nothing could be seen before. take your field-glasses: the specks are vultures circling up on high! look again, and far, far above you will see still other specks; and for aught you know, there may be others still beyond. how high are they? and what can they see from there? who knows? but this is sure, that within a few minutes scores will come swooping down in great spiral rushes where not one was visible before. my own belief is that they watch each other, tier above tier away into the limitless heavens—watching jealously, as hungry dogs do, for the least suspicious sign—to swoop down and share the spoil.
in the dewy cool of the morning we soon reached the place where jock had left me behind the evening before; and from that on he led the way. it was much slower work then; as far as i was concerned, there was nothing to guide me, and it was impossible to know what he was after. did he understand that it was not fresh game but the wounded koodoo that i wanted? and, if so, was he following the scent of the old chase or merely what he might remember of the way he had gone? it seemed impossible that scent could lie in that dry country for twelve hours; yet it was clearly nose more than eyes that guided him. he went ahead soberly and steadily, and once when he stopped completely, to sniff at a particular tuft of grass, i found out what was helping him. the grass was well streaked with blood: quite dry, it is true; still it was blood.
a mile or so on we checked again where the grass was trampled and the ground scored with spoor. the heavy spoor was all in a ring four or five yards in diameter; outside this the grass was also flattened, and there i found a dog’s footprints. but it had no further interest for jock; while i was examining it he picked up the trail and trotted on. we came upon four or five other rings where they had fought. the last of these was curiously divided by a fallen tree, and it puzzled me to guess how they could have made a circle with a good-sized trunk some two feet high intersecting it. i examined the dead tree and found a big smear of blood and a lot of coarse greyish hair on it. evidently the koodoo had backed against it whilst facing jock and had fallen over it, renewing the fight on the other side. there were also some golden hairs sticking on the stumpy end of a broken branch, which may have had something to do with jock’s scraped sides.
then for a matter of a hundred yards or more it looked as if they had fought and tumbled all the way. jock was some distance ahead of me, trotting along quietly, when i saw him look up, give that rare growling bark of his—one of suppressed but real fury—lower his head, and charge. then came heavy flapping and scrambling and the wind of huge wings, as twenty or thirty great lumbering aasvogels flopped along the ground with jock dashing furiously about among them—taking flying leaps at them as they rose, and his jaws snapping like rat-traps as he missed them.
on a little open flat of hard-baked sand lay the stripped frame of the koodoo: the head and leg-bones were missing; meat-stripped fragments were scattered all about; fifty yards away among some bushes jock found the head; and still further afield were remains of skin and thigh-bones crushed almost beyond recognition.
no aasvogel had done this: it was hyenas’ work. the high-shouldered slinking brute, with jaws like a stone-crusher, alone cracks bones like those and bigger ones which even the lion cannot tackle. i walked back a little way and found the scene of the last stand, all harrowed bare; but there was no spoor of koodoo or of jock to be seen there—only prints innumerable of wild dogs, hyenas and jackals, and some traces of where the carcase, no doubt already half-eaten, had been dragged by them in the effort to tear it asunder.
jock had several times shown that he strongly objected to any interference with his quarry; other dogs, kaffirs, and even white men, had suffered or been badly scared for rashly laying hands on what he had pulled down. without any doubt he had expected to find the koodoo there and had dealt with the aasvogels as trespassers; otherwise he would not have tackled them without word from me. it was also sure that until past midnight he had been there with the koodoo, watching or fighting. then when had the hyenas and wild dogs come? that was the question i would have given much to have had answered. but only jock knew that!
i looked at him. the mane on his neck and shoulders which had risen at the sight of the vultures was not flat yet; he was sniffing about slowly and carefully on the spoor of the hyenas and wild dogs; and he looked ‘fight’ all over. but what it all meant was beyond me; i could only guess—just as you will—what had happened out in the silent ghostly bush that night.
