ain has got some sort of
black secret, and the natives know it, and have got a pull on him.'
And I was inclined to think he was right.

By-and-by I began to feel the lack of company, for Wardlaw was so full
of his books that he was of little use as a companion. So I resolved to
acquire a dog, and bought one from a prospector, who was stony-broke
and would have sold his soul for a drink. It was an enormous Boer
hunting-dog, a mongrel in whose blood ran mastiff and bulldog and
foxhound, and Heaven knows what beside. In colour it was a kind of
brindled red, and the hair on its back grew against the lie of the rest
of its coat. Some one had told me, or I may have read it, that a back
like this meant that a dog would face anything mortal, even to a
charging lion, and it was this feature which first caught my fancy.
The price I paid was ten shillings and a pair of boots, which I got at
cost price from stock, and the owner departed with injunctions to me to
beware of the brute's temper. Colin--for so I named him--began his
career with me by taking the seat out of my breeches and frightening Mr
Wardlaw into a tree. It took me a stubborn battle of a fortnight to
break his vice, and my left arm to-day bears witness to the struggle.
After that he became a second shadow, and woe betide the man who had
dared to raise his hand to Colin's master. Japp declared that the dog
was a devil, and Colin repaid the compliment with a hearty dislike.

With Colin, I now took to spending some of my ample leisure in
exploring the fastnesses of the Berg. I had brought out a shot-gun of
my own, and I borrowed a cheap Mauser sporting rifle from the store. I
had been born with a good eye and a steady hand, and very soon I became
a fair shot with a gun and, I believe, a really fine shot with the
rifle. The sides of the Berg were full of quail and partridge and bush
pheasant, and on the grassy plateau there was abundance of a bird not
unlike our own blackcock, which the Dutch called korhaan. But the great
sport was to stalk bush-buck in the thickets, which is a game in which
the hunter is at small advantage. I have been knocked down by a
wounded bush-buck ram, and but for Colin might have been badly damaged.
Once, in a kloof not far from the Letaba, I killed a fine leopard,
bringing him down with a single shot from a rocky shelf almost on the
top of Colin. His skin lies by my fireside as I write this tale. But
it was during the days I coul