Jock Of The Bushveld by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick ( Chapter 7 )(Page 1 ) In The Heart Of The Bush

When the hen pecked Jock on the nose, she gave him a useful lesson in the art of finding out what you want to know without getting intotrouble.  As he got older, he also learned that there are only certain things which concerned him and which it was necessary for him to know. A young dog begins by thinking that he can do everything, go everywhere, and know everything; and a hunting dog has to learn to mind his own
business, as well as to understand it.  Some dogs turn sulky or timid or stupid when they are checked, but an intelligent dog with a stout heart will learn little by little to leave other things alone, and grow steadily keener on his own work.  There was no mistake about Jock's keenness.  When I took down the rifle from the waggon he did not go off into ecstasies of barking, as most sporting dogs will do, but would give a quick look up and with an eager little run towards me give a whimper of joy, make two or three bounds as if wanting to stretch his muscles and loosen his joints, then shake himself vigorously as though he had just come out of the water, and with a soft suppressed "Woo-woo-woo" full of contentment, drop silently into his place at my heels and give his whole attention to his work. He was the best of companions, and through the years that we huntedtogether I never tired of watching him.  There was always something to learn, something to admire, something to be grateful for, and very often something to laugh at--in the way in which we laugh only at those whom we are fond of.  It was the struggle between Jock's intense keenness and his sense of duty that most often raised the laugh.  He knew that his place was behind me; but probably he also knew that nine times out of ten he scented or saw the game long before I knew there was anything near, and naturally wanted to be in front or at least abreast of me to show me whatever there was to be seen. He noticed, just as surely and as quickly as any human being could, any change in my manner: nothing escaped him, for his eyes and ears were on the move the whole time.  It was impossible for me to look for more than a few seconds in any one direction, or to stop or even to turn my head
to listen, without being caught by him.  His bright brown eyes were everlastingly on the watch and on the move: from me to the bush, from the bush back to me.  When we were after game, and he could scent or see it, he would keep a foot or two to the side of me so as to have a clear view; and when he knew by my manner that I thought there was game near, he kept so close up that he would often bump against my heels as I walked, or run right into my legs if I stopped suddenly.  Often when stalking buck very quietly and cautiously, thinking only of what was in front, I would get quite a start by feeling something bump up against me behind.  At these times it was impossible to say anything without risk of scaring the game, and I got into the habit of making signs with my hand which he understood quite as well. Sometimes after having crawled up I would be in the act of aiming when he would press up against me.  Nothing puts one off so much as a touch or the expectation of being jogged when in the act of firing, and I used to get angry with him then, but dared not breathe a word; I would lower
my head slowly, turn round, and give him a look.  He knew quite well what it meant.  Down would go his ears instantly, and he would back away from me a couple of steps, drop his stump of a tail and wag it in a feeble deprecating way, and open his mouth into a sort of foolish laugh. That was his apology!  "I beg your pardon: it was an accident!  I won't do it again." It was quite impossible to be angry with him, he was so keen and he meant so well; and when he saw me laughing softly at him, he would come up again close to me, cock his tail a few inches higher and wag it a bit faster. There is a deal of expression in a dog's tail: it will generally tell you what his feelings are.  My friend maintained that that was how he knew his old dog was enjoying the joke against the cockerel; and that is certainly how I knew what Jock was thinking about once when lost in the veld; and it showed me the way back. It is easy enough to lose oneself in the Bushveld.  The Berg stands up some thousands of feet inland on the west, looking as if it had been put there to hold up the High veld; and between the foothills and the sea lies the Bushveld, stretching for hundreds of miles north and south. From the height and distance of the Berg it looks as flat as the floor, but in many parts it is very much cut up by deep rough dongas, sharp rises and depressions, and numbers of small kopjes.  Still, it has a way of looking flat, because the hills are small, and very much alike; and because hill and hollow are covered and hidden mile after mile by small trees of a wonderful sameness, just near enough together to prevent you from seeing more than a few hundred yards at a time.  Most people see no differences in sheep: many believe that all Chinamen are exactly alike; and so it is with the Bushveld: you have to know it first. So far I had never lost my way out hunting.  The experiences of other men and the warnings from the old hands had made me very careful.  We were always hearing of men being lost through leaving the road and following up the game while they were excited, without noticing which
way they went and how long they had been going.  There were no beaten tracks and very few landmarks, so that even experienced hunters went astray sometimes for a few hours or a day or two when the mists or heavy rains came on and nothing could be seen beyond fifty or a hundred yards. Nearly every one who goes hunting in the Bushveld gets lost some time or other--generally in the beginning before he has learned to notice things.  Some have been lost for many days until they blundered on to a track by accident or were found by a search-party; others have been lost and, finding no water or food, have died; others have been killed by lions, and only a boot or a coat--or, as it happened in one case that I know of, a ring found inside a lion--told what had occurred; others have been lost and nothing more ever heard of them.  There is no feeling quite like that of being lost--helplessness, terror, and despair!  The horror of it is so great that every beginner has it before him; every
one has heard of it, thought of it, and dreamed of it, and every one feels it holding him to the beaten track, as the fear of drowning keeps those who cannot swim to shallow water.  That is just in the beginning. Presently, when little excursions, each bolder than the previous, have ended without accident, the fear grows less and confidence develops. Then it is, as a rule, that the accident comes and the lesson is learned, if you are lucky enough to pull through. When the camp is away in the trackless bush, it needs a good man always to find the way home after a couple of hours' chase with all its twists and turns and doublings; but when camp is made on a known road--a long main road that strikes a fair line between two points of the compass--it seems impossible for any one to be hopelessly lost.  If the road runs east and west you, knowing on which side you left it, have only to walk north or south steadily and you must strike it again.  The old hands told the beginners this, and we were glad to know that it was only a matter of walking for a few hours, more or less, and that in the end we were bound to find the road and strike some camp.  "Yes," said the old hands, "it is simple enough here where you have a road running east and west; there is only one rule to remember: When you have lost your way, don't lose your head."  But indeed that is just the one rule that you are quite unable to observe. Many stories have been told of men being lost: many volumes could be filled with them for the trouble of writing down what any hunter will tell you.  But no one who has not seen it can realise how the thing may happen; no one would believe the effect that the terror of being lost, and the demoralisation which it causes, can have on a sane man's senses. If you want to know what a man can persuade himself to believe against the evidence of his senses--even when his very life depends upon his holding to the absolute truth--then you should see a man who is lost in the bush.  He knows that he left the road on the north side; she loses his bearings; he does not know how long how fat, or how far he has
walked; yet if he keep his head he will make due south and must inevitably strike the road.  After going for half an hour and seeing nothing familiar, he begins to feel that he is going in the wrong direction; something pulls at him to face right about.  Only a few minutes more of this, and he feels sure that he must have crossed the road without noticing it, and therefore that he ought to be going north instead of south, if he hopes ever to strike it again.  How, you will ask, can a man imagine impossible to cross a big dusty road twenty or thirty feet wide without seeing it?  The idea seems absurd; yet they do really believe it.  One of the first illusions that occurs to men when they lose their heads is that they have done this, and it is the cause of scores of cases of `lost in the bush.'  The idea that they may have done it is absurd enough; but stranger still is the fact that they actually _do_ it.