CHAP. vi. LEOPARDS. 295 



boulders and stones. It would have been all but impos- 

 sible for us to have tracked the leopard here, but fortu- 

 nately the keen and willing noses of the Boer-hounds 

 enabled them to lead us over the more difficult ground, 

 and when they were at fault on the various occasions when 

 it had crossed water we always managed to assist them 

 by finding the spoor on the soft ground on either side. 



At last, on nearing a native village, a man came out 

 and shouted to us that the animal which we were in 

 search of had passed there at early dawn, and had, out of 

 sheer mischief, for it could not possibly have been hungry, 

 killed a goat, the carcase of which they had found a few 

 hundred yards off. On hearing this the party was divided 

 in opinion as to the best course to pursue ; whether for 

 one or two of our number to lie in wait by the dead goat, 

 to which the leopard was nearly sure to return, or to 

 follow it up at once. I was in favour of doing the latter, 

 for the reason that as there was no moonlight it was quite 

 possible it might approach unseen, even if it did not defer 

 its visit to the following night, when the meat would be 

 higher and therefore more in accordance with its tastes, 

 and also because from the behaviour of the hounds I felt 

 no doubt that we should be successful in our search, and 

 after some little argument it was decided that it should 

 be so. Striking the track again, therefore, at the spot to 

 which the native had followed it, we proceeded without a 

 check for some two hours, momentarily getting into 

 steeper and more broken ground, until we reached a mass 

 of great bare boulders and exposed rocks much resembling 

 a Highland cairn. 



Here the hounds began to give evident signs of being 



