enable fresh or rested dogs to jump in from time to 

 time and so, eventually, wear the poor hunted creature 

 down. This, according to the natives, is the system 

 of the wild pack. When they cannot find easy prey 

 in the young, weak or wounded, and are forced by 

 hunger to hunt hard, they first scatter widely over 

 the chosen area where game is located, and then one 

 buck is chosen the easiest victim, a ewe with young 

 for choice and cutting it out from the herd, they 

 follow that one and that alone with remorseless in- 

 vincible persistency. They begin the hunt knowing 

 that it will last for hours knowing too that in speed 

 they have no chance against the buck and when the 

 intended victim is cut out from the herd one or two 

 of the dogs so the natives say take up the chase 

 and with long easy gallop keep it going, giving no 

 moment's rest for breath ; from time to time they 

 give their weird peculiar call and others of the pack 

 posted afar head the buck off to turn it back again ; 

 the fresh ones then take up the chase, and the first 

 pair drop out to rest and wait, or follow slowly until 

 their chance and turn come round again. There is 

 something so hateful in the calculated pitiless method 

 that one feels it a duty to kill the cruel brutes when- 

 ever a chance occurs. 



The hunt went on round us ; sometimes near 

 enough to hear the dogs' eager cries quite clearly ; 

 sometimes so far away that for a while nothing could 

 be heard ; and Jock moved from point to point in the 

 outermost circle of the camp-fire's light nearest to 

 the chase. 



298 



