up the spoor he found what was left hidden in another 

 tree some two hundred yards away. 



It would have been waste of time to follow our 

 tiger he would be on the watch and on the move 

 for hours ; so we gave it up at once, and struck across 

 the spurs for another part of the big arena where pig 

 and bushbuck were known to feed in the mornings. 

 It was slow and difficult work, as the bush was very 

 dense and the ground rough. The place was riddled j 

 with game tracks, and we saw spoor of koodoo and '"/' 

 eland several times, and tracks innumerable of wild '' 

 pig, rietbuck, bushbuck, and duiker. But there was 

 more than spoor : a dozen times we heard the crash 

 of startled animals through the reeds or bush only a 

 -few yards away without being able to see a thing. 



We had nearly reached the kloof we were aiming 

 for when we had the good luck to get a bushbuck in 

 a very unexpected way. We had worked our way 

 out of a particularly dense patch of bush and brambles 

 into a corner of the woods and were resting on the 

 mossy ground in the shade of the big trees when the 

 sound of clattering stones a good way off made us 

 start up again and grab our rifles; and presently 

 we saw, outlined against the band of light which marked 

 the edge of the timber, a buck charging down towards 

 us. Three of us fired together, and the buck rolled 

 over within a few yards of where we stood. 



We were then in a ' dead end ' up against the 

 precipitous face of the Berg where there was no road 

 or path other than game tracks, and where no human 

 being ever went except for the purpose of hunting. 

 265 



