XIX CATTLE SCENTING WATER 323 



their only chance for Hfe was to stick to the cattle 

 tracks they were following, as they did not think 

 they would have the strength to retrace their steps 

 to where we rested last night and then follow up 

 the tracks of the Mangwato cattle to the Luali river, 

 as I have done on horseback." 



This was Dick's story, and how much or how 

 little to believe of it, I did not know. He had 

 always been a good, trustworthy boy, and a great 

 favourite with his master. I never imagined that 

 he and all my boys would have gone to sleep again 

 after I had roused them, but I felt more angry with 

 myself than with them, for not having actually 

 seen my cattle started before riding forward. As, 

 according to Dick's account, he must have ridden 

 at least twelve miles on the tracks of our cattle 

 without their having come to the water which he 

 thought they had smelt whilst the herd-boys slept, 

 I could not believe it possible that they had really 

 scented water. Tinkarn, however, whose experience 

 was far greater than mine in such matters, stoutly 

 maintained that cattle, when thirsty, could scent 

 water at extraordinary distances, and arguing from 

 the abstract to the concrete, thought that had the 

 lost oxen not done so, they would assuredly have 

 followed up the tracks of his own herd and arrived 

 by themselves at the Luali river. 



Tinkarn and his people were now, after the day's 

 rest, about to start back with their cattle to the 

 place where their waggons had been left standing 

 in the desert, but I did not care to go with them, 

 and take the chance of my oxen having found 

 water, and having then been driven back to the 

 waggons. Supposing the oxen and the herd-boys 

 had died of thirst — or been killed by the sun, as 

 the Kafirs express it — what was to happen to 

 our waggons then ? Collison, Miller, Sell, and the 

 four waggon -drivers would, I knew, be all right, 



