cutting up, and packing the wildebeeste, and when 

 we reached the outspan the waggons had already 

 started and we had a long tramp before us to catch 

 them. 



I drove Mungo before me, keeping him at an easy 

 jog. We had been going for possibly an hour and if 

 was quite dark, except for the stars and the young moon 

 low down on our right ; the road was soft and Mungo's 

 jogging paces sounded like floppy pats ; there was no 

 other sound at all, not even a distant rumble from 

 the waggons to cheer us ; Mungo must have been sick 

 of it and one might have thought him jogging in his 

 sleep but for the occasional pricking of his ears a 

 trick that always makes me wonder how much more 

 do horses see in the dark than we do. I walked like 

 a machine, with rifle on shoulder and glad to be rid of 

 the broken bandolier, then transferred to Mungo ; 

 and Jock trotted at my heels. 



This tired monotonous progress was disturbed by 

 Mungo : his ears pricked ; his head went up ; and 

 he stopped, looking hard at a big low bush on our left. 

 I gave him a tap with the switch, and without an 

 instant hesitation he dashed off to the right making 

 a half circle through the veld and coming into the road 

 again fifty yards ahead, and galloped away leaving a 

 rising column of dust behind him. 



I stood and faced the bush that Mungo had shied 

 at, and the first thing that occurred to me was that 

 my bandolier and cartridges were with the pony. 

 Then Jock growled low and moved a few steps forward 

 and slightly to the right, also sheering off from that 



371 



