BLIND HOOKEY 39 



choosing a rather long-cheeked " Pelham " for " steering 

 and stopping gear," as there was a good deal of barbed- 

 wire fencing about. Now, although Jacob, like most 

 Cape boys, could stick on almost anything in the shape 

 of a horse, he, in common with his ebon brethren, possessed 

 " hands of lead." We therefore tried to drum into the 

 thick, woolly pate of the stable lad the fact that he was 

 not to ride Blind Hookey hard, nor to make use of the 

 curb unless he found the animal too great a handful 

 to manage. With a broad grin of enjoyment at the pros- 

 pect of riding a " rough 'un," Jacob sprang into the saddle 

 with the agility of a monkey, but scarcely had he touched 

 the bridle-reins than Blind Hookey indulged in a series 

 of plunges, and then set off across the veld at a wild gallop, 

 heading straight for a wire-enclosed plantation of blue 

 gums, and with Jacob yelling and hauling on the curb like 

 a madman. 



' That's a dead nigger for a hundred," is our muttered 

 ejaculation as we follow on the heels of the flying pair of 

 mad things as fast as poor old Bushman, a superannuated 

 chaser, can lay hoofs to ground. 



On and on gallops Blind Hookey, swerving neither 

 to right nor left, but approaching every moment nearer 

 to the treacherous, nay, deadly, wire fencing. 



" Can it be possible that Jacob does not realise the dan- 

 ger that lies immediately before him ? or has he lost his 

 head or nerve that he does not attempt to turn the brute 

 he is riding from its mad course ? " 



Ah ! at last the Cape boy appears to be doing all he 

 can to stop his headlong speed of the galloway, for the 

 working of his dusky arms tells us that he is both saw- 

 ing and pulling at the brute's mouth as only a Kafir 



