Jock of the Bushveld - Fitzpatrick Percy

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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

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