ot out
from the herd. He came about twenty yards in my direction, and I had a
grand chance to watch him through my strong military glasses. He looked for
all the world like a miniature buffalo bull, the same ungainly head and
fore-quarters, big, heavy shoulders, neat legs, shapely barrel, light loin,
and hindquarters, the same proppy, ungainly gait. I unslung my rifle to
have a shot at him, when he wheeled and blundered back to the herd, and the
lot streamed off at a pace which the best hunter in England would have
found trying, in spite of the clumsiness of their movements. The half-caste
grinned as he came towards me with the horses, grinned with such a glorious
breadth of mouth that I could see far enough down his black and tan throat
to tell pretty well what he had for breakfast. This annoyed me. I like an
open countenance in a servant, but I detest a mouth that looks like a mere
burial ground for cold chicken. We rode on for a mile or two, and then saw
a pretty little herd of springbok about eighteen hundred yards away on the
left. Slipping down into a donga, I left the horse and crawled forward,
getting within nice, easy range. I dropped one of the pretty little
beauties. I tried a flying shot at the others as they raced away like magic
things through the grass, which climbed half-way up their flanks, but it
was lead wasted that time.

My coffee-coloured retainer gathered up the spoil, and paid me a compliment
concerning my shooting, though well I knew he had sized me up as a
"wastrel" with a rifle, for his shy eyes gave the lie to his oily tongue.
We hunted round for awhile, and then from the top of a little kopje I saw a
beautiful herd of vildebeestes one hundred and sixteen in number, lumbering
slowly towards where we stood. The wind blew straight from them towards us,
so that I had no fear on the score of scent. Climbing swiftly down until
almost level with the veldt, I lay cosily coiled up behind a rock, and
waited for the quarry. They came at last, Indian file, about a yard and a
half separating one from the other, not a hundred and twenty yards from
where I lay. I had plenty of time to pick and choose, and plenty of time to
take aim, so did not hurry myself. Sighting for a spot just behind the
shoulder, I sent a bit of lead fair through a fine beast, and expected to
see him drop, but he did nothing of the kind. For one brief second the
animal stood as if paralysed; then, with a leap and a lurch, he dashed on