THE RIVER JUNGLE 



in the background and the first away when danger 

 threatened. The ladies could look out for them- 

 selves. They had no horns to save; and what do the 

 fool women mean by showing so little sense, any- 

 way! They deserve what they get! It used to 

 amuse me a lot to observe the utter abandonment 

 of all responsibility by these handsome gentlemen. 

 When it came time to depart, they departed. 

 Hang the girls! They trailed along after as fast 

 as they could. 



The waterbuck — a fine large beast about the 

 size of our caribou, a well-conditioned buck resem- 

 bling in form and attitude the finest of Landseer's 

 stags — on the other hand, had a little more sense 

 of responsibility, when he had anything to do with 

 the sex at all. He was hardly what you might call 

 a strictly domestic character. I have hunted 

 through a country for several days at a time with- 

 out seeing a single mature buck of this species, al- 

 though there were plenty of does, in herds of ten to 

 fifty, with a few infants among them just sprouting 

 horns. Then finally, in some small grassy valley, 

 I would come on the Men's Club. There they were, 

 ten, twenty, three dozen of them, having the finest 

 kind of an untramelled masculine time all by them- 

 selves. Generally, however, I will say for them, 

 they took care of their own peoples. There would 



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