326 LARGE GAME. CHAP. vn. 



through the jungle that they are anything but easy to 

 catch in it, and often give the stationed gun an impression 

 that something larger is coming. The small blue-buck, 

 however, was quite beyond him, and unless he nailed it 

 at the first spring, he used to stand and watch it dodging 

 through the under-brush with a comical air of disgust, 

 but latterly he would never attempt to run one. 



Some time after this, long after Usipingo's death, and 

 when I had succeeded in getting a very fast lot of hounds 

 together, I was asked to pay a visit to a friend of mine on 

 the Noodsberg, and went up, taking two of the fastest 

 with me. The very afternoon I arrived I met an old 

 fellow the head man of a neighbouring village, he told 

 me carrying an oribi, and followed by six or eight half- 

 starved crosses of the Amaponda breed. 



" Where did you get that from ? " I asked. 



" The dogs caught it." 



" Nonsense ! An oribi is faster than a reed-buck, and 

 would give one of these," pointing to my hounds, " all 

 its work to do. You must have stuck it." 



No, he hadn't, he persisted ; and as I could find no 

 mark on it I went on, satisfied that the oribi was not as 

 fast as people said it was. I had shot them often enough, 

 but had never coursed them. So that evening I said to 

 my friend that I should like to take one of the hounds 

 out next day and pull an oribi down. The other was a 

 little lame, and I didn't care about working her. 



" Is your dog very fast ? " he asked. 



" Fastest I Ve got," was the answer. 



" Did he ever run into an oribi before ? " 



"No." 



