216 KEES THE BABOON 



hands — this would have taken too long, and besides, the 

 earth was often very hard ; but he grasped the plant firmly 

 with his teeth, set his feet tight, and threw back his head 

 with a jerk. If this failed to extract the root, he would 

 then fix his teeth in the stem closer to the ground, and 

 turn head over heels. This was too much for the root, 

 which always came out directly. 



Having once got possession of his prize, the nest 

 thing was to eat it. He would look carefully round to 

 see where his master was, and would gobble it up more 

 or less fast, according to the distance Le Vaillant was 

 from him, never moving his eyes from the explorer's 

 feet all the while. If, however, his master came on him 

 unexpectedly, he would hastily try to hide the root and pre- 

 tend that he knew nothing about it ; but a light box on 

 the ear soon obliged him to share the morsel with his 

 friend. 



In the course of a long day's hunting, Kees, much as 

 he enjoyed the expedition, often got very tired, and used 

 to ride one of the dogs, w T ho, being very good-natured, 

 would carry him for whole hours at a time. As a rule, 

 none of the dogs hated him ; indeed he kept them all 

 in order, and if any of them attempted to interfere with 

 him when he was eating, he would adopt the method of 

 his master, and send the intruder away with a box on the 

 ear. 



But the biggest and strongest dog of the pack was 

 less good-natured than the rest, and whether from pride 

 or laziness, very much objected to act the part of a beast 

 of burden. So when Kees took it in his head to jump on 

 him, he merely stood still and let all the others get well 

 in front of him. Kees could not endure to remain behind 

 anybody, and thumped the dog and pulled his ears to 

 make him go on. But neither thumps nor pulls pro- 

 duced any effect ; the dog would not stir. At last, 

 seeing there was no help for it, Kees got down, and both 

 he and the dog raced as fast as they could to join the 



