and with no one else to depend on, I befriended him ; 

 and perhaps it was because he was always cheerful 

 and plucky and it seemed as if there might be some 

 good stuff in him after all. Those were the things I 

 used to think of sometimes when feeding the little 

 outcast. The other puppies would tumble him over 

 and take his food from him ; they would bump into 

 him when he was stooping over the dish of milk and 

 porridge, and his head was so big and his legs so weak 

 that he would tip up and go heels over head into the 

 dish. We were always picking him out of the food 

 and scraping it off him : half the time he was wet 

 and sticky, and the other half covered with porridge 

 and sand baked hard by the sun. 



One day just after the waggons had started, as I 

 took a final look round the outspan place to see if 

 anything had been forgotten, I found the little chap 

 who was only about four inches high struggling 

 to walk through the long grass. He was not big enough 

 or strong enough to push his way even the stems of 

 the down-trodden grass tripped him and he stumbled 

 and floundered at every step, but he got up again 

 each time with his little tail standing straight up, 

 his head erect, and his ears cocked. He looked such 

 a ridiculous sight that his little tragedy of " lost in 

 the veld " was forgotten one could only laugh. 



What he thought he was doing, goodness only 

 knows ; he looked as proud and important as if he 

 owned the whole world and knew that every one in 

 it was watching him. The poor little chap could not 

 see a yard in that grass ; and in any case he was not 



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