THE DESERTS 35 



accomplished the approach, when O, Di inferi! from 

 close ahead there jumped a single gazelle a fawn, of 

 course (since no adult is ever surprised thus, napping in 

 daylight). The incident necessarily signalled an alarm ; 

 but it was not deep-seated, for presently our troop had 

 recommenced grazing, half a mile ahead. Remembering 

 the earlier lesson, I waited and watched, and reaped the 

 reward. One hour later my friends were slowly grazing 

 back towards their original stance. Presently the inter- 

 rupted stalk was resumed on precisely the original lines, 

 but a few hundred yards beyond the first-intended point 

 of contact. Either stalk involved a final crawl, serpent- 

 wise, across glowing sand that burnt the hand ; but 

 success repays all that. Yesterday's success was due 

 solely to luck. To-day, though "luck " at first had ebbed, 

 yet patience triumphed. We had learnt the lesson ; still 

 "it's dogged as does it." 



(iii) A Winning Hazard. The rocky jebels of the 

 desert produce no nutriment, nothing but black plutonic 

 lava. Yet on such forage grazed a group of gazelle. 

 Access from the crest above would be feasible, even easy, 

 provided the stalker were equipped with the noiseless pads 

 of a leopard, but otherwise impossible. An underfeature 

 a cluster of rocks 500 yards beyond suggested an 

 alternative scheme, namely, that the game might con- 

 ceivably be "moved" thereto. In any case, in so vast a 

 country, such manoeuvre could only succeed by the 

 veriest fluke ; and it failed through lack of co-ordination 

 between joint efforts where tongues differ. Of my 

 two Arab boys, one, too fleet of foot, passed beyond 

 the "wind." We then tried a second koppie. Here 

 the rifle commanded two possible salients. That on 

 his right, however, was altogether too wide to promise 

 any reasonable prospect. The other . . . well, by supreme 

 good luck, no gazelles took the broad and straight road 

 that led to safety; but three elected to come in by "the 

 other." 



