me 



Rocky was different that day. He showed 

 things ; reading the open book of nature that I could 

 not understand. He pointed out the spoors going to 

 and from the drinking-place, and named the various 

 animals; showed me one more deeply indented than 

 the rest and, murmuring " Scared I guess," pointed to 

 where it had dashed off out of the regular track ; 

 picked out the big splayed pad of the hyena sneaking 

 round under cover ; stopped quietly in his stride to 

 point where a hare was sitting up cleaning itself, not 

 ten yards off ; stopped again at the sound of a clear, 

 almost metallic, ' clink ' and pointed to a little sandy 

 gully in front of us down which presently came thirty 

 or forty guinea-fowl in single file, moving swiftly, 

 running and walking, and all in absolute silence except 

 for that one ' clink.' How did he know they were 

 there, and which way they would go, and know it all 

 so promptly ? were questions I asked myself. 



We walked with the sun that is towards the West 

 so that the light would show up the game and be in 

 their eyes, making it more difficult for them to see 

 us. We watched a little red stembuck get up from 

 his form, shake the dew from his coat, stretch himself, 

 and then pick his way daintily through the wet grass, 

 nibbling here and there as he went. Rocky did not 

 fire ; he wanted something better. 



After the sun had risen, flooding the whole country 

 with golden light, and, while the dew lasted, making 

 it glisten like a bespangled transformation scene, we 

 came on a patch of old long grass and, parted by some 

 twenty yards, walked through it abreast. There was a 



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