214 
THE NEW AFRICA 
flagging behind the troop that kept about a thousand yards 
ahead, and at last, after going two hours, I gave it up. Knowing 
that the faithful Chiki and his companions were on my track 
with water, and that it would be useless to hunt down this par¬ 
ticular laagte along which the wildebeest had swept like a hurri¬ 
cane, I crossed over the sand-belt on the right to the next 
laagte, about three miles off, going slowly to recover my wind, 
but influenced by the determination to kill something before 
returning to camp. I reckoned to be about thirteen miles from 
camp, and as there were still two and a half hours of daylight, I 
felt there was still a good chance to find some game on my way 
homeward down the next laagte. Not far ahead three giraffes 
suddenly started out of some tall trees about four hundred yards 
off, and I, thinking that if a Bushman could run down this game 
it was worth trying a similar experiment, started off at a good 
run after them. Over the next sand-belt they went into another 
laagte, but try all I could with occasional spurts to get nearer, 
the distance between us would not lessen, and as it was approach¬ 
ing sundown, I again had to abandon the chase. Hardly knowing 
where I was or how far I had gone from camp, the only fact 
uppermost in my mind was that there was nothing to eat. I 
started down the laagte, intending later to cross back over the 
two sand-belts I had passed, but meanwhile to keep on the look¬ 
out for game while daylight lasted; and had not gone far when a 
beautiful little steenbok rose from some cover and stood looking 
at me from eighty yards’ distance. I squatted down in my old 
favourite position and pulled almost instantly, not to give him 
a chance to be off. He bounded up at the shot, hard hit, and 
running twenty yards or less, turned clean over on his back from 
the velocity of his flight, dead. To run up and rip out his entrails 
was the work of a few moments, and immediately after I was 
stuffing the contents of his stomach in handfuls into my parched 
mouth to suck out the moisture, and then, hauling a few dry 
branches together, made a fire, and tearing off the skin, threw the 
carcass on to the fire to roast. I also heaped up part of the fire 
with green twigs, to make a column of smoke that should serve 
