“I would have missed—by feet—that time Rocky!”
“You kin take it fer a start, Halve the distance and aim low!”
“Aim low, as well?”
“Thar’s allus somethin’ low: legs, an’ ground to show what you done! But thar’s no ‘outers’ marked on the sky!”
Once, as we walked along, he paused to look at some freshly overturned ground, and dropped the one word, ‘Pig.’ We turned then to the right and presently came upon some vlei ground densely covered with tall green reeds. He slowed down as we approached; I tip-toed in sympathy; and when only a few yards off he stopped and beckoned me on, and as I came abreast he raised his hand in warning and pointed into the reeds. There was a curious subdued sort of murmur of many deep voices. It conveys no idea of the fact to say they were grunts. They were softened out of all recognition: there is only one word for it, they sounded ‘confidential.’ Then as we listened I could make out the soft silky rustling of the rich undergrowth, and presently, could follow, by the quivering and waving of odd reeds, the movements of the animals themselves. They were only a few yards from us—the nearest four or five; they were busy and contented; and it was obvious they were utterly unconscious of our presence. As we peered down to the reeds from our greater height it seemed that we could see the ground and that not so much as a rat could have passed unnoticed. Yet we saw nothing!
And then, without the slightest sign, cause or warning that I could detect, in one instant every sound ceased. I watched the reeds like a cat on the pounce: never a stir or sign or sound: they had vanished. I turned to Rocky: he was standing at ease, and there was the faintest look of amusement in his eyes.
“They must be there; they can’t have got away?” It was a sort of indignant protest against his evident ‘chucking it’; but it was full of doubt all the same.
“Try!” he said, and I jumped into the reeds straight away. The under-foliage, it is true, was thicker and deeper than it had looked; but for all that it was like a conjuring trick—they were not there! I waded through a hundred yards or more of the narrow belt—it was not more than twenty yards wide anywhere—but the place was deserted. It struck me then that if they could dodge us at five to ten yards while we were watching from the bank and they did not know it—Well, I ‘chucked it’ too. Rocky was standing in the same place with the same faint look of friendly amusement when I got back, wet and muddy.
“Pigs is like that,” he said, “same as elephants—jus’ disappears!”
We went on again, and a quarter of an hour later, it may be, Rocky stopped, subsided to a sitting position, beckoned to me, and pointed with his levelled rifle in front. It was a couple of minutes before he could get me to see the stembuck standing in the shade of a thorn-tree. I would never have seen it but for his whisper to look for something moving: that gave it to me; I saw the movement of the head as it cropped.