that it was impossible to say what he would do ; he 

 had seen me shoot a couple and had wanted to worry 

 them as they fell ; but that was all. He was quite 

 obedient and kept his place behind me ; and, although 

 he trembled with excitement when he saw or heard 

 anything, he never rushed in or moved ahead of me 

 without permission. The guinea-fowl tormented him 

 that day ; he could scent and hear them, and was 

 constantly making little runs forward, half crouching 

 and with his nose back and tail dead level and his one 

 ear full-cocked and the other half-up. 



For about half an hour we went on in this way. 

 There was plenty of fresh duiker spoor to show 

 us that we were in a likely place, one spoor in 

 particular being so fresh in the mud that it seemed 

 only a few minutes old. We were following this 

 one very eagerly but very cautiously, and evidently 

 Jock agreed with me that the duiker must be near, 

 for he took no more notice of the guinea-fowl ; and 

 I for my part forgot all about crocodiles and suspicious- 

 looking rocks ; there was at that moment only one 

 thing in the world for me, and that was the duiker. 

 We crept along noiselessly in and out of the reeds, 

 round rocks and mudholes, across small stretches of 

 firm mud or soft sand, so silently that nothing could 

 have heard us, and finally we came to a very big rock, 

 with the duiker spoor fresher than ever going close 

 round it down stream. The rock was a long sloping one, 

 polished smooth by the floods and very slippery to walk 

 on. I climbed it in dead silence, peering down into the 

 n reeds and expecting every moment to see the duiker. 



' 1 06 



