welcome, helping him out with explanations of the un- 

 flattering facts. For the listener it is, at best and worst, 

 only amusing or tiresome ; but for the person con- 

 cerned it is different for, as Rocky said, ' It don't fool 

 any one worth speakin' of 'cept yerself .' And ' there's 

 the rub.' Whenever a bullet struck with a thud, and no 

 dust appeared to show that it had hit the ground, I 

 thought that it must have wounded the buck ; and once 

 you get the idea that the buck is hit, all sorts of reasons 

 appear in support of it. There is hardly anything that 

 the buck can do which does not seem to you to prove 

 that it is wounded. It bounds into the air, races off 

 suddenly, or goes away quite slowly ; it switches its 

 tail or shakes its head ; it stops to look back, or does 

 not stop at all ; the spoor looks awkward and scrappy ; 

 the rust on the grass looks like dry blood. If you start 

 with a theory instead of weighing the evidence all 

 these things will help to prove that theory : they will, 

 in fact, mean exactly what you want them to mean. 

 You ' put up a job on yerself ' to quote Rocky 

 again and with the sweat of your brow and vexation 

 of spirit you have to work that job out. 



Poor old Jock had a few hard chases after animals 

 which I thought were wounded but were not hit at all 

 not many, however, for he soon got hold of the right 

 idea and was a better judge than his master. He 

 went off the instant he was sent, but if there was 

 nothing wounded that is, if he could not pick up 

 a ' blood spoor ' he would soon show it by casting 

 across the trail, instead of following hard on it ; and 

 I knew then there was nothing in it. Often he would 



