194 A MEDLEY OF SPORT 



the kloof was clothed, until it reached the open veldt ; 

 and so on and on towards the Limpopo. While walking 

 along this spruit to find a stand from which I might 

 sight Master Piggy if he took it into his head to break 

 veldtwards, Jacob (having injured his foot, he had been 

 told off to carry my gun, etc.) suddenly drew my atten- 

 tion to a number of slot-prints in the red, clayey soil of 

 the stream. " Inkonka^^ (bush-buck), laconically re- 

 marked the Zulu as he bent down to examine the spoor. 

 The spoor did not appear fresh, however, and I continued 

 along the bank until arriving at a big outcrop at the base 

 of the kopje, from which a clear view right across the 

 neck of the kloof was obtainable. Here I took up my 

 stand, and, telling Jacob to hide as much of his huge 

 anatomy as possible behind the outcrop, I awaited events. 

 My companion in the meanwhile had taken the boys to 

 the head of the cleft, for, like the good fellow he was, 

 he was anxious that I should get a shot at something 

 worth shooting at if possible, before the return to camp 

 was made. 



Soon the yells of the ebon beaters resounded through 

 the kloof, and an occasional " yap " from the curs told 

 me that game of some kind was afoot. Knowing, how- 

 ever, that a Kaffir dog will give tongue to anything, from 

 a shrew-mouse to an elephant, I shrewdly suspected that 

 a klip-das (rock-rabbit) was the quarry they were hunt- 

 ing. The ear-splitting whoops and yells came nearer and 

 nearer as the excited, sweating natives struggled through 

 the more open covert, or thrashed the impenetrable 



