Jock of the Bushveld. Fitzpatrick Percy

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СКАЧАТЬ the wet grass, nibbling here and there as he went. Rocky did not fire; he wanted something better.

      After the sun had risen, flooding the whole country with golden light, and, while the dew lasted, making it glisten like a bespangled transformation scene, we came on a patch of old long grass and, parted by some twenty yards, walked through it abreast. There was a wild rush from under my feet, a yellowish body dashed through the grass, and I got out in time to see a rietbuck ram cantering away. Then Rocky, beside me, gave a shrill whistle; the buck stopped, side on, looked back at us, and Rocky dropped it where it stood. Instantly following the shot there was another rush on our left, and before the second rietbuck had gone thirty yards Rocky toppled it over in its tracks. From the whistle to the second shot it was all done in about ten seconds. To me it looked like magic. I could only gasp.

      We cleaned the bucks, and hid them in a bush. There was meat enough for the camp then, and I thought we would return at once for boys to carry it; but Rocky, after a moment’s glance round, shouldered his rifle and moved on again. I followed, asking no questions. We had been gone only a few minutes when to my great astonishment he stopped and pointing straight in front asked:

      “What ’ud you put up for that stump?” I looked hard, and answered confidently, “Two hundred!”

      “Step it!” was his reply. I paced the distance; it was eighty-two yards.

      It was very bewildering; but he helped me out a bit with “Bush telescopes, Sonny!”

      “You mean it magnifies them?” I asked in surprise. “No! Magnifies the distance, like lookin’ down an avenue! Gun barr’l looks a mile long when you put yer eye to it! Open flats brings ’em closer; and ’cross water or a gully seems like you kin put yer hand on ’em?”

      “I would have missed – by feet – that time Rocky!”

      “You kin take it fer a start, Halve the distance and aim low!”

      “Aim low, as well?”

      “Thar’s allus somethin’ low: legs, an’ ground to show what you done! But thar’s no ‘outers’ marked on the sky!”

      Once, as we walked along, he paused to look at some freshly overturned ground, and dropped the one word, ‘Pig.’ We turned then to the right and presently came upon some vlei ground densely covered with tall green reeds. He slowed down as we approached; I tip-toed in sympathy; and when only a few yards off he stopped and beckoned me on, and as I came abreast he raised his hand in warning and pointed into the reeds. There was a curious subdued sort of murmur of many deep voices. It conveys no idea of the fact to say they were grunts. They were softened out of all recognition: there is only one word for it, they sounded ‘confidential.’ Then as we listened I could make out the soft silky rustling of the rich undergrowth, and presently, could follow, by the quivering and waving of odd reeds, the movements of the animals themselves. They were only a few yards from us – the nearest four or five; they were busy and contented; and it was obvious they were utterly unconscious of our presence. As we peered down to the reeds from our greater height it seemed that we could see the ground and that not so much as a rat could have passed unnoticed. Yet we saw nothing!

      And then, without the slightest sign, cause or warning that I could detect, in one instant every sound ceased. I watched the reeds like a cat on the pounce: never a stir or sign or sound: they had vanished. I turned to Rocky: he was standing at ease, and there was the faintest look of amusement in his eyes.

      “They must be there; they can’t have got away?” It was a sort of indignant protest against his evident ‘chucking it’; but it was full of doubt all the same.

      “Try!” he said, and I jumped into the reeds straight away. The under-foliage, it is true, was thicker and deeper than it had looked; but for all that it was like a conjuring trick – they were not there! I waded through a hundred yards or more of the narrow belt – it was not more than twenty yards wide anywhere – but the place was deserted. It struck me then that if they could dodge us at five to ten yards while we were watching from the bank and they did not know it – Well, I ‘chucked it’ too. Rocky was standing in the same place with the same faint look of friendly amusement when I got back, wet and muddy.

      “Pigs is like that,” he said, “same as elephants – jus’ disappears!”

      We went on again, and a quarter of an hour later, it may be, Rocky stopped, subsided to a sitting position, beckoned to me, and pointed with his levelled rifle in front. It was a couple of minutes before he could get me to see the stembuck standing in the shade of a thorn-tree. I would never have seen it but for his whisper to look for something moving: that gave it to me; I saw the movement of the head as it cropped.

      “High: right!” was Rocky’s comment, as the bullet ripped the bark off a tree and the startled stembuck raced away. In the excitement I had forgotten his advice already!

      But there was no time to feel sick and disgusted; the buck, puzzled by the report on one side and the smash on the tree on the other, half circled us and stopped to look back. Rocky laid his hand on my shoulder:

      “Take your time, Sonny!” he said, “Aim low; an’ don’t full! Squeeze!” And at last I got it.

      We had our breakfast there – the liver roasted on the coals, and a couple of ‘dough-boys,’ with the unexpected addition of a bottle of cold tea, weak and unsweetened, produced from Rocky’s knapsack! We stayed there a couple of hours, and that is the only time he really opened out. I understood then – at last – that of his deliberate kindliness he had come out that morning meaning to make a happy day of it for a youngster; and he did it.

      He had the knack of getting at the heart of things, and putting it all in the fewest words. He spoke in the same slow grave way, with habitual economy of breath and words; and yet the pictures were living and real, and each incident complete. I seemed to get from him that morning all there was to know of the hunting in two great continents – Grizzlies and other ‘bar,’ Moose and Wapiti, hunted in the snows of the North West; Elephant, Buffalo, Rhino, Lions, and scores more, in the sweltering heat of Africa!

      That was a happy day!

      When I woke up next morning Rocky was fitting the packs on his donkeys. I was a little puzzled, wondering at first if he was testing the saddles, for he had said nothing about moving on; but when he joined us at breakfast the donkeys stood packed ready to start. Then Robbie asked:

      “Going to make a move, Rocky?”

      “Yes! Reckon I’ll git!” he answered quietly.

      I ate in silence, thinking of what he was to face: many hundreds of miles – perhaps a thousand or two; many, many months – may be a year or two; wild country, wild tribes, and wild beasts; floods and fever; accident, hunger, and disease; and alone!

      When we had finished breakfast he rinsed out his beaker and hung it on one of the packs, slung his rifle over his shoulder, and picking up his long assegai-wood walking-stick tapped the donkeys lightly to turn them into the Kaffir footpath that led away North. They jogged on into place in single file.

      Rocky paused a second before following, turned one brief grave glance on us, and said!

      “Well. So long!”

      He never came back!

      Chapter Three.

      Jess

      Good dogs were not easy to get; I had tried hard enough for one before starting, but without success. Even unborn puppies had СКАЧАТЬ