182 A MEDLEY OF SPORT 



the forehead tells its own tale, he is very soon in the 

 saddle again, and comes pounding along to try and make 

 up the ground the mishap has lost to him. For five and 

 twenty minutes we have been riding at almost steeple- 

 chase pace, and so good is the scent and so fast the run 

 that there has been scarcely any music since we left 

 covert. But, when passing the homestead, as though 

 out of " sheer cussedness," such a glorious crash of music 

 breaks the dead silence of the still early morning that it 

 awakens the slumbering family of Doppers dwelling at 

 the homestead, and the whole herd, male and female, 

 headed by a great bearded giant, armed with a rifle, rush 

 out into the stoef garbed in all sorts of strange and 

 fearful raiment. " What the — — do you verdommed 

 rooineks mean by riding over my farm with your mongrel 

 dogs, spoiling my crops. Voetsack " (get out) '' or I'll 

 shoot," roars out the infuriated Boer, in fairly fluent 

 English, to the huntsman, whom he evidently imagines 

 to be Baas of the hunt. " All right, uncle, we'll soon 

 be off your allotment now, and if we kill, I'll leave a bit 

 of venison for you," replies the good-tempered hunts- 

 man, as he gallops past the stoep. A few minutes later 

 both he and his hounds are over the second wall. 



The steinbok is now running in view, as the veldt 

 here, and for a couple of miles ahead, has been fired, 

 and there is not a vestige of herbage to be seen. 



" Forrard ! forrard ! forrard ! " shrieks out Tom, as 

 he cheers on the eager, straining pack, fearful that they 

 may not gain the blood they thirst for and so richly 



