"Wasn't it?"
"Why no. And where's my plug?"
"Your what?"
"The plug of wood I had in the barrel. Good Heavens! You don't mean to say that you fired the thing off with the plug in it?"
"I don't know anything about plugs. You gave me the rifle to fire and I fired it. My neck hurts, and I'm going back to the waggon."
There must have been good metal in that old rifle, or it would surely have exploded. About an inch from the end of the barrel was a bulge as large as a hen's egg.
One adventure is fully recorded in the diary.
Fernie shot a reedbuck. Rain had fallen during the afternoon, so, following the example of the waggon boys, the white men had taken the roof from a deserted native hut, propped it up with a pole, and had made their beds under it.
Fernie put the reedbuck meat on the raised eaves of the hut roof to be out of the reach of stray night marauders, such as hyenas, jackals, or native dogs.
After his experience with the lion, he had discarded the damaged shot-gun in favour of the more serviceable rifle as a means of protection by night.