Jock Of The Bushveld by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick ( Chapter 9 )( Page 1 ) The Impala Stampede

Not all our days were spent in excitement--far far from it.  For six or seven months the rains were too heavy, the heat too great, the grass too rank, and the fever too bad in the Bushveld for any one to do any good there; so that for more than half of the year we had no hunting to speak of, as there was not much to be done above the Berg.  But even during the hunting season there were many off-days and long spells when we never fired a shot.  The work with the waggons was hard when we had full loads, the trekking slow and at night, so that there was always something to do in the daytime--repairs to be done, oxen to be doctored, grass and water to be looked for, and so on; and we had to make up sleep when we could.  Even when the sport was good and the bag satisfactory there was usually nothing new to tell about it.  So Jock and I had many a long spell when there was no hunting, many a bad day when we worked hard but had no sport, and many a good day when we got what we were after and nothing happened that would interest any one else.  Every hunt was exciting and interesting for us, even those in which we got nothing; indeed some of the most interesting were those in which the worst disappointments occurred, when after hard work and long chases the game escaped us.  To tell all that happened would be to tell the same old story many times over; but indeed, it would not be possible to tell all, for there were some things--the most interesting of all, perhaps—which only Jock knew. After the fight with the duiker there was never any doubt as to what he would do if allowed to follow up a wounded animal.  It made a deal of difference in the hunting to know that he could be trusted to find it and hold on or bay it until I could get up.  The bush was so thick that it was not possible to see more than a very few hundred yards at best, and the country was so dry and rough that if a wounded animal once got out of sight only an expert tracker had any chance of finding it again. Jock soon showed himself to be better than the best of trackers, for besides never losing the trail he would either pull down the buck or, if too big for that, attack and worry even the biggest of them to such an extent that they would have to keep turning on him to protect themselves and thus give me the chance to catch up. But the first result of my confidence in him was some perfectly hopeless chases.  It is natural enough to give oneself the benefit of any doubt; the enthusiastic beginner always does so, and in his case the lack of experience often creates a doubt where none should have existed; and the doubt is often very welcome, helping him out with explanations of the unflattering facts.  For the listener it is, at best and worst, only amusing or tiresome; but for the person concerned it is different--for, as Rocky said, `It don't fool any one worth speakin' of 'cept yerself.' And `there's the rub.'  Whenever a bullet struck with a thud, and no dust appeared to show that it had hit the ground, I thought that it must have wounded the buck; and once you get the idea that the buck is hit, all sorts of reasons appear in support of it.  There is hardly anything that the buck can do which does not seem to you to prove that it is wounded.  It bounds into the air, races off suddenly, or goes away quite slowly; it switches its tail or shakes its head; it stops to look back, or does not stop at all; the spoor looks awkward and scrappy; the rust on the grass looks like dry blood.  If you start with a theory instead of weighing the evidence all these things will help to prove that theory: they will, in fact, mean exactly what you want them to mean. You `put up a job on yerself'--to quote Rocky again--and with the sweat of your brow and vexation of spirit you have to work that job out. Poor old Jock had a few hard chases after animals which I thought were wounded but were not hit at all--not many, however, for he soon got hold of the right idea and was a better judge than his master.  He went off the instant he was sent, but if there was nothing wounded--that is, if he could not pick up a `blood spoor'--he would soon show it by casting across the trail, instead of following hard on it; and I knew then there was nothing in it.  Often he would come back of his own accord, and there was something quite peculiar in his look when he returned from these wild-goose chases that seemed to say, "No good: you were quite wrong.  You missed the whole lot of them."  He would come up to me with his mouth wide-open and tongue out, a bit blown, and stand still with his front legs wide apart, looking up at me with that nothing-in-it sort of look in his eyes and not a movement in his ears or tail and never a turn of his head to show the least interest in anything else.  I got to know that look quite well; and to me it meant, "Well, that job was a failure--finished and done for.  Now is there anything else you can think of?"