Note 1. “Stump tail.” Taillessness is frequent among colonial cattle—the result of inoculation.
Volume One—Chapter Nine.
In Which the Reader Becomes a Party to More Chaff.
They rode merrily along, or rather two of them did, for ever and anon Allen’s steed would drop behind, and its sorry pace wax slower and slower, till at length, taking advantage of its rider’s abstraction, it would stop and snatch up a tuft of grass here and there by the way-side.
“What the deuce has become of that fellow again?” exclaimed Armitage for the fifth time since their start, as he rose in his stirrups and turned to look back. “Hi—Allen. Come on, man, we shan’t get there to-night!” he bawled.
“All right,” echoed feebly from afar; and the white top of a pith helmet, which had escaped its owner’s immersion, hove in sight over the scrub like a peripatetic mushroom, as the laggard came trotting up.
“Come on! We thought you had got another bee in your bonnet,” was Armitage’s salutation. “Hi—Bles you schelm—hold up!” This to his horse, which started violently as something sprang up at its very feet; something lithe and red, with curious pointed ears, which darted away over the ground with lightning speed. “A rooi-cat (lynx), by Moses!” he went on, “after some of the late lambs. Hicks, where is that old shooting-iron of yours?” and thinking that though powerless to hurt the objectionable feline, at any rate he could frighten it, Armitage opened his mouth and gave vent to a true Kafir war yell, which certainly had the desired effect.