82 THE SHIKARI 



carry home, and on picking up the backbone a bright 

 object caught our attention, and there, embedded 

 between the processes and only just clear of the 

 spinal column, was a clean and polished iron arrow- 

 head, and so firmly was it fixed that the vertebras had 

 to be separated before it could be released. 



It was carefully looked at, and one of the boys 

 instantly recognized it as one he had shot at a young 

 bushbuck still with its dam some year or so before. 

 There it had lain ever since, and though doubtless 

 giving the little beast untold agony, he had recovered 

 and grown to maturity. 



Always remember that most Kaffir dogs are brown, 

 and even the natives will frequently crawl through the 

 bush on their hands and knees, and both at times can 

 be easily mistaken for game. Just such a mistake did 

 happen in Zululand some few years back, resulting 

 in a native killing his own son. 



It happened this wise. Baboons had been pestering 

 and robbing the lands, and at last the old native took 

 down his gun and sallied forth into the forest after 

 them, taking with him his younger son. The baboons 

 were artful and could not be approached, so the son 

 was sent round to try and put them back to the old 

 man, who was hiding. After some little time the 

 son lost the direction of his father, so climbed a tree 

 to see where he was, but, unluckily for him, close to 

 where his dad lay in hiding, and as he showed up the 

 trunk above the surrounding undergrowth, his father 



