hh horse's eyes and galloped him over a twenty foot 

 bank headlong into the Jew's Hole in Lydenburg ; 

 Owen, who when driving four young horses in a Cape 

 cart flung the reins away and whipped up the team, 

 bellowing with laughter, because his nervous com- 

 panion said he had never been upset and did not want 



to be ; Owen, who But too many things rise up 



that earned him his title and blow the * impossible ' 

 to the winds. 



Mad Owen deserves a book to himself ; but 

 here is my little testimony on his behalf, given shame- 

 faced at the thought of how he would roar to think 

 it needed. 



I crossed that same drift one evening and on riding 

 up the bank to Furley's store saw a horse standing in 

 a dejected attitude with one hind leg clothed in 

 ' trowsers ' made of sacking and held up by a sus- 

 pender ingeniously fastened across his back. 



During the evening something reminded me of the 

 horse, and I asked a question ; and the end of Furley's 

 answer was, " They say it's all a yarn about ' horse- 

 whipping ' a crocodile : all we know is that one night, 

 a week ago, he turned up here dripping wet, and 

 after having a drink told us the yarn. He had the 

 leaded hunting-crop in his hand ; and that's the horse 

 he was riding. You can make what you like of it. 

 We've been doctoring the horse ever since, but I doubt 

 if it will pull through ! " 



I have no doubt about the incident. Owen did not 

 invent : he had no need to ; and Furley himself was 

 no mean judge of crocodiles and men. Furley kept 



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