366 THE GREAT THIRST LAND. 



jumped on Ruby's back, and shoved a fresh cartridge 

 into the breech of my rifle. This action warned the 

 quarry where the danger was, so off they went at their 

 extraordinary trot; but, however funny their gait ap- 

 pears, it has a marvellous capability of covering the 

 ground. 



Dear little Euby ! I christened you so because I 

 thought you perfection, and thus being so like one I loved. 

 But why think of the past? Euby, in her keenness 

 to be alongside the game, if I do not look out, will pull 

 me over her head. It takes a good horse to catch a 

 giraffe, but even with my weight up, if the ground were 

 at all suitable, it never appeared any trouble for this 

 little mare to overhaul them. 



I singled out a cow of giant proportions, one of the 

 largest I had ever seen; she was attended by a calf 

 about seven feet high. Now this old lady was very 

 crafty : soon she found out that speed could not save 

 her, although she put on a wonderful turn of it, and 

 made her tail describe a circle, of which the root was 

 the centre and the tassel the circumference; so she 

 altered her tactics, and made into some very dense bush, 

 the little one sticking to her heels like a leech. At 

 length I compelled her to leave this cover, when she 

 made a dash out over the open, evidently with the inten- 

 tion of gaining some thick wood at the end of a coppy. 



No need of spurs : my little grey laid down at once 

 to her work ; every stride brought me closer and closer. 

 Steady, my lassie ; take the left side, if you please, and 

 my rifle was cocked to deliver my shot, when Euby put 

 both her feet in an ant-bear hole or some other ex- 

 cavation, and I went flying over her head, how far I 

 cannot say, into a clump of thorn-bushes. 



