Jock Of The Bushveld by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick ( Chapter 17 )( Page 7 ) Buffalo Bushfire and Wild Dogs

There was no more hunting for us: our feet had `gone in,' and we were well content to sleep and rest.  The burnt stubbly ends of the grass had pierced the baked leather of our boots many times; and Jock, too, had suffered badly and could hardly bear to set foot to the ground next day. The best we could hope for was to be sound enough to return to our own waggons in two or three days' time. The camp was under a very large wild fig tree, whose dense canopy gave us shade all through the day.  We had burnt the grass for some twenty or thirty yards round as a protection against bush fires; and as the trees and scrub were not thick just there it was possible to see in various directions rather further than one usually can in the Bushveld.  The big tree was a fair landmark by day, and at night we made a good fire, which owing to the position of the camp one could see from a considerable distance.  These precautions were for the benefit of strayed or belated members of the party; but I mention them because the position of the camp and the fire brought us a strange visitor the last night of our stay there. There were, I think, seven white men; and the moving spirit of the party--old Teddy Blacklow of Ballarat--was one of the old alluvial diggers, a warmhearted, impulsive, ever-young old boy, and a rare good sportsman.  That was Teddy, the `man in muddy moleskins,' who stretched out the hand of friendship when the Boy was down, and said "You come along o' me!" one of `God's sort.' Teddy's spirits were always up; his presence breathed a cheery optimism on the blankest day; his humour lighted everything; _his_ stories kept us going; and his language was a joy for ever.  In a community, in which such things savoured of eccentricity, Teddy was an abstainer and never swore; but if actual profanity was avoided, the dear old boy all unconsciously afforded strong support to those who hold that a man must find relief in vigorous expression.  To do this, without violating his principles, he invented words and phrases, meaningless in themselves but in general outline, so to say, resembling the worst in vogue; and the effect produced by them upon the sensitive was simply horrifying.  Teddy himself was blissfully unconscious of this, for his language, being scrupulously innocent, was deemed by him to be suited to all circumstances and to every company.  The inevitable consequence was that the first impression produced by him on the few women he ever met was that of an abandoned old reprobate whose scant veil of disguise only made the outrage of his language more marked.  Poor old Teddy!  Kindest and gentlest and dearest of souls!  How he would have stared at this, speechless with surprise; and how we used to laugh at what some one called his `glittering paro-fanities!'  Pity it is that they too must go; for one dare not reproduce the best of them. It was between eight and nine o'clock on the last day of our stay; Francis and I were fit again, and Jock's feet, thanks to care and washing and plenty of castor oil, no longer troubled him; we were examining our boots--re-soled now with raw hide in the rough but effective veld fashion; Teddy was holding forth about the day's chase whilst he cut away the pith of a koodoo's horns and scraped the skull; others were busy on their trophies too; and the kaffirs round their own fire were keeping up the simultaneous gabble characteristic of hunting boys after a good day and with plenty of meat in camp. I was sitting on a small camp stool critically examining a boot and wondering if the dried hide would grip well enough to permit of the top lacings being removed, and Jock was lying in front of me, carefully licking the last sore spot on one fore paw, when I saw his head switch up suddenly and his whole body set hard in a study of intense listening. Then he got up and trotted briskly off some ten or fifteen yards, and stood--a bright spot picked out by the glare of the camp fire--with his back towards me and his uneven ears topping him off. I walked out to him, and silence fell on the camp; all watched and listened.  At first we heard nothing but soon the call of a wild dog explained Jock's movements; the sound, however, did not come from the direction in which he was looking, but a good deal to the right; and as he instantly looked to this new quarter I concluded that this was not the dog he had previously heard, or else it must have moved rapidly. There was another wait, and then there followed calls from other quarters. There was nothing unusual in the presence of wild dogs: hyenas, jackals, wild dogs and all the smaller beasts of prey were heard nightly; what attracted attention in this case was the regular calling from different points.  The boys said the wild dogs were hunting something and calling to each other to indicate the direction of the hunt, so that those in front might turn the buck and by keeping it in a circle enable fresh or rested dogs to jump in from time to time and so, eventually, wear the poor hunted creature down.  This, according to the natives, is the system of the wild pack.  When they cannot find easy prey in the young, weak or wounded, and are forced by hunger to hunt hard, they first scatter widely over the chosen area where game is located, and then one buck is chosen--the easiest victim, a ewe with young for choice—and cutting it out from the herd, they follow that one and that alone with remorseless invincible persistency.  They begin the hunt knowing that it will last for hours--knowing too that in speed they have no chance against the buck--and when the intended victim is cut out from the herd one or two of the dogs--so the natives say--take up the chase and with long easy gallop keep it going, giving no moment's rest for breath; from time to time they give their weird peculiar call and others of the pack--posted afar--head the buck off to turn it back again; the fresh ones then take up the chase, and the first pair drop out to rest and wait, or follow slowly until their chance and turn come round again. There is something so hateful in the calculated pitiless method that one feels it a duty to kill the cruel brutes whenever a chance occurs. The hunt went on round us; sometimes near enough to hear the dogs' eager cries quite clearly; sometimes so far away that for a while nothing could be heard; and Jock moved from point to point in the outermost circle of the camp fire's light nearest to the chase. When at last hunters and hunted completed their wide circuit round the camp, and passed again the point where we had first heard them, the end seemed near; for there were no longer single calls widely separated, but the voices of the pack in hot close chase.