Jock Of The Bushveld by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick ( Chapter 17 )( Page 4 ) Buffalo Bushfire and Wild Dogs

They work on Nature's lines.  Look at the ostrich--the cock, black and handsome, so strikingly different from the commonplace grey hen! Considering that for periods of six weeks at a stretch they are anchored to one spot hatching the eggs, turn and turn about, it seems that one or other must be an easy victim for the beast of prey, since the same background cannot possibly suit both.  But they know that too; so the grey hen sits by day, and the black cock by night!  And the ostrich is not the fool it is thought to be--burying its head in the sand!  Knowing how the long stem of a neck will catch the eye, it lays it flat on the ground, as other birds do, when danger threatens the nest or brood, and concealment is better than flight.  That tame chicks will do this in a bare paddock is only a laughable assertion of instinct. Look at the zebra!  There is nothing more striking, nothing that arrests the eye more sharply--in the Zoo--than this vivid contrast of colour; yet in the bush the wavy stripes of black and white, are a protection, enabling him to hide at will. I have seen a wildebeeste effectually hidden by a single blighted branch; a koodoo bull, by a few twisty sticks; a crouching lion, by a wisp of feathery grass no higher than one's knee, no bigger than a vase of flowers!  Yet, the marvel of it is always fresh. After a couple of hundred yards of that sort of going, we changed our plan, taking to the creek again and making occasional cross-cuts to the trail, to be sure he was still ahead.  It was certain then that the buffalo was following the herd and making for the poort, and as he had not stopped once on our account we took to the creek after the fourth crosscut and made what pace we could to reach the narrow gorge where we reckoned to pick up the spoor again. There are, however, few short cuts--and no certainties--in hunting; when we reached the poort there was no trace to be found of the wounded buffalo; the rest of the herd had passed in, but we failed to find blood or other trace of the wounded one, and Jock was clearly as much at fault as we were. We had overshot the mark and there was nothing for it but to hark back to the last blood spoor and, by following it up, find out what had happened.  This took over an hour, for we spoored him then with the utmost caution, being convinced that the buffalo, if not dead, was badly wounded and lying in wait for us. We came on his `stand,' in a well-chosen spot, where the game path took a sharp turn round some heavy bushes.  The buffalo had stood, not where one would naturally expect it--in the dense cover which seemed just suited for his purpose--but among lighter bush on the _opposite_ side and about twenty yards nearer to us.  There was no room for doubt about his hostile intentions; and when we recalled how we had instantly picked out the thick bush on the left--to the exclusion of everything else—as the spot to be watched, his selection of more open ground on the other side, and nearer to us, seemed so fiendishly clever that it made one feel cold and creepy.  One hesitates to say it was deliberately planned; yet--plan, instinct or accident--there was the fact. The marks showed us he was badly hit; but there was no limb broken, and no doubt he was good for some hours yet.  We followed along the spoor, more cautiously than ever; and when we reached the sharp turn beyond the thick bush we found that the path was only a few yards from the stream, so that on our way up the bed of the creek we had passed within twenty yards of where the buffalo was waiting for us.  No doubt he had heard us then as we walked past, and had winded us later on when we got ahead of him into the poort.  What had he made of it?  What had he done?  Had he followed up to attack us?  Was he waiting somewhere near?  Or had he broken away into the bush on finding himself headed off?  These were some of the questions we asked ourselves as we crept along. Well! what he had done did not answer our questions.  On reaching the poort again we found his spoor, freshly made since we had been there, and he had walked right along through the gorge without stopping again, and gone into the kloof beyond.  Whether he had followed us up when we got ahead of him--hoping to stalk us from behind; or had gone ahead, expecting to meet us coming down wind to look for him; or, when he heard us pass down stream again--and, it may be, thought we had given up pursuit--had simply walked on after the herd, were questions never answered. A breeze had risen since morning, and as we approached the hills it grew stronger: in the poort itself it was far too strong for our purpose—the wind coming through the narrow opening like a forced draught.  The herd would not stand there, and it was not probable that the wounded animal would stop until he joined the others or reached a more sheltered place. We were keen on the chase, and as he had about an hour's start of us and it was already midday, there was no time to waste. Inside the poort the kloof opened out into a big valley away to our left--our left being the right bank of the stream--and bordering the valley on that side there were many miles of timbered kloofs and green slopes, with a few kaffir kraals visible in the distance; but to the right the formation was quite different, and rather peculiar.  The stream--known to the natives as Hlamba-Nyati, or Buffalo's Bathing Place--had in the course of time shortened its course to the poort by eating into the left bank, thus leaving a high, and in most places, inaccessible terrace above it on the left side and a wide stretch of flat alluvium on the right.  This terrace was bounded on one side by the steep bank of the creek and walled in on the other side by the precipitous kranses of the mountains. At the top end it opened out like a fan which died away in a frayed edge in the numberless small kloofs and spurs fringing the amphitheatre of the hills.  The shape was in fact something like the human arm and hand with the fingers outspread.  The elbow was the poort, the arm the terrace--except that the terrace was irregularly curved--and the fingers the small kloofs in the mountains.  No doubt the haunts of the buffalo were away in the `fingers,' and we worked steadily along the spoor in that direction.