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By the way, I haven't thanked you for saving my Bessie! But I do thank you, yes, that I do. I must tell you that Bessie is my favourite niece. Never was there such a girl never. Moves like a springbuck, and what an eye and form! Work too she'll do as much work as three. There's no nonsense about Bessie, none at all. She's not a fine lady, for all her fine looks."

Thereon the whole herd of buck turned and came thundering towards them, stretched in a long line across the wide veldt; the springbuck first, then the blesbuck, looking for all the world like a herd of great bearded goats, owing to their peculiar habit of holding their long heads down as they galloped.

Fortunately, however, the veld was bare and open, consisting of long waves of ground. One start I did get, thinking that I saw men's heads just on the crest of a wave, which turned out to be only a herd of springbuck feeding among the tussocks of grass. I was very glad to see them, since their presence assured me that no human being had recently passed that way.

"Jimmy, you're the light-weight; jump up on the organ and impale these things on the leaves as I hand 'em!" "I see," said Jimmy, capering like a springbuck. "Upward and onward, eh? First, he'll reach out for how infernal prickly these leaves are! this biscuit. How human! How like your ignoble career, Bubbles!"

Presently, there came slowly, from far away, a wild springbuck. It came close to the house, and stood looking at it in wonder, while the moonlight glinted on its horns, and in its great eyes. It stood wondering at the red brick walls, and the girl watched it.

The Bakalahari take advantage of this feeling, and burn off large patches of grass, not only to attract the game by the new crop when it comes up, but also to form bare spots for the springbuck to range over. It is not the springbuck alone that manifests this feeling.

The springbuck, possessing this feeling in an intense degree, and being eminently gregarious, becomes uneasy as the grass of the Kalahari becomes tall. The vegetation being more sparse in the more arid south, naturally induces the different herds to turn in that direction.

And there, too, is the wild game, following its feeding-grounds in great armies, with the springbuck thrown out before for skirmishers; then rank upon rank of long-faced blesbuck, marching and wheeling like infantry; and last the shining troops of quagga, and the fierce-eyed shaggy vilderbeeste to take, as it were, the place of the cossack host that hangs upon an army's flanks.

It was startling because they were the only living creatures except birds and springbuck that I had seen for miles of that lonely march. The heath stretching to the sky north and south and east and west; the muddy pan; the poor house and outbuildings; the solitary horseman; the terrified group these filled the picture; and it was not without misgivings that I approached the house.

Thus he prattled on, I believe to occupy my mind and his own, till at length, growing impatient, I replied: "Be silent, donkey. Can I shoot an elephant backwards over my shoulder with a rifle meant for springbuck? Hit the camel! Hit it hard!" Alas! Hans was right!