o  trick  to a  literary
anecdote.'
     'Why didn't you like him?' P.O.M. asked.
     'Do I have to tell? Isn't the anecdote complete? It's just like the old
man tells them.'
     'Go ahead and tell.'
     'Too much the old timer about him. Eyes used to vast distances and that
sort  of  thing. Killed too many bloody lions. No credit kill so many lions.
Gallop 'em, yes.  Couldn't kill  that many.  Lion kill  you instead.  Writes
damned fine  things in {The Saturday Evening Post} about, what's the bloke's
name, Andy Burnett. Oh, damned fine. Took an awful  dislike to him,  though.
See  him in  Nairobi with his  eyes used to vast distances. Wore  his oldest
clothes in town. Hell of a fine shot, everybody says.'
     'Why you're  a  literary  bastard,'  I  said.  'Look  at  that  for  an
anecdote.'
     'He's marvellous,' P.O.M. said. 'Aren't we ever going to eat?'
     'Thought by God  we'd eaten,'  Pop said. 'Start these anecdotes. No end
to 'em.'
     After dinner we  sat  by the fire a little while  and then went to bed.
One thing seemed to be on Pop's mind and before I  went in the tent he said,
'After you've waited so long, when you get a shot take it easy. You're  fast
enough so you can take your time, remember. Take it easy. '
     'All right.'
     'I'll have them get you up early.'
     'All right. I'm plenty sleepy.'
     'Good night, Mr. J. P.,' P.O.M. called from the tent.
     'Good night,' Pop said. He moved toward his tent carrying himself  with
comic  stiffness,  walking  in the dark as carefully  as  though he  were an
opened bottle.


        CHAPTER TWO

     Molo waked  me  by  pulling  on  the blanket in the  morning and I  was
dressing, dressed, and out washing the  sleep  out of my eyes  before  I was
really awake. It was still  very  dark and  I could see Pop's back  shadowed
against the fire. I walked over holding the early morning cup of hot tea and
milk in my hand waiting for it to be cool enough to drink.
     'Morning,' I said.
     'Morning,' he answered in that husky whisper.
     'Sleep?'
     'Very well. Feeling fit?'
     'Sleepy is all.'
     I drank the tea and spat the leaves into the fire.
     'Tell your bloody fortune with those,' Pop said.
     'No fear.'
     Breakfast in the dark with  a lantern,  cool  juice-slippery  apricots,
hash, hot-centred, brown, and catsup  spread,  two  fried  eggs and the warm
promise-keeping coffee. On the third cup Pop, watching,  smoking  his  pipe,
said, 'Too early for me to face it yet.'
     'Get you?'
     'A little.'
     'I'm getting exercise,' I said. 'It doesn't bother me.'
     'Bloody  anecdotes,'  Pop  said.  'Memsahib  must   think  we're  silly
beggars.'
     'I'll think up some more.'
     'Nothing  better than drinking.  Don't know why it should make you feel
bad.'
     'Are you bad?'
     'Not too.'
     'Take a spot of Eno's?'
     'It's this damned riding in cars.'
     'Well, to-day's the day.'
     'Remember to take it very easy.'
     'You're not worried about that, are you?'
     'Just a touch.'
     'Don't. It never worries me a minute. Truly.'
     'Good. Better get going.'
     'Have to make a trip first.'
     Standing in front of the canvas circle of the latrine I looked, as each
morning, at that fuzzy blur of stars  that  the romanticists of  astronomers
called  the  Southern  Cross.  Each morning  at this  moment I observed  the
Southern Cross in solemn ceremony.
     Pop was at the car. M'Cola handed me the Springfield  and I got in  the
front. The  tragedian and  his tracker were in  the back. M'Cola  climbed in
with them.
     'Good  luck,' Pop  said. Someone  was coming from towards the tents. It
was P.O.M. in her blue robe and mosquito boots. '{Oh}, good luck,' she said.
{Please}, good luck.'
     I waved and we started, the headlights showing the way to the road.
     There was nothing on the salt when we  came up to it after leaving  the
car about three miles away and making a very careful stalk. Nothing came all
morning. We sat with our heads down in  the blind, each covering a different
direction through openings in the thatched withes, and always I expected the
miracle of a bull kudu coming majestic and beautiful  through the open scrub
to the grey, dusty  opening in  the trees where  the  salt  lick  was  worn,
grooved, and trampled. There were many trails to it through the trees and on
any one a bull  might come silently. But nothing came. When  the sun was  up
and we  were warmed after the misty  cold of  the morning I settled  my rump
deeper in  the  dust  and lay  back  against the wall  of  the hole, resting
against the small of my back  and my shoulders,  and still able to  see  out
through  the  slit  in the  blind. Putting the Springfield across my knees I
noticed that  there  was rust on the  barrel.  Slowly I pulled it along  and
looked at the muzzle. It was freshly brown with rust.
     'The bastard never cleaned it last night  after  that rain,' I thought,
and,  very  angry, I lifted the lug and  slipped  the bolt  out. M'Cola  was
watching me  with his head down. The  other two were looking out through the
blind. I held the rifle in one  hand for  him to look through the breech and
then put the  bolt back in and shoved it forward softly, lowering it with my
finger on the trigger so that it was ready to cock rather than keeping it on
the safety.
     M'Cola had seen the rusty bore. His face had not changed and I had said
nothing  but I was full of contempt and there had been indictment, evidence,
and condemnation without  a word  being spoken. So we sat there, he with his
head  bent so only  the bald top showed,  me leaning back  and  looking  out
through  the slit, and we were no longer  partners, no  longer good friends,
and nothing came to the salt.
     At  ten  o'clock the breeze, which had come  up  in the  east, began to
shift around and we knew it was no use. Our scent was being scattered in all
directions  around the blind as  sure  to frighten  any animals as though we
were revolving a searchlight in the dark. We  got up out  of the  blind  and
went over to look in the dust of the lick for tracks. The rain had moistened
it but it was not soaked and we saw several kudu tracks, probably made early
in  the night and  one big bull track, long,  narrow, heart-shaped, clearly,
deeply cut.
     We took  the  track  and followed it on the damp reddish earth for  two
hours  in thick  bush that was like second-growth timber at home. Finally we
had to  leave it  in stuff we could  not move  through. All this time  I was
angry  about the uncleaned rifle and yet happy  and  eager with anticipation
that we might jump the bull and  get a snap at him in the brush. But  we did
not  see him and now, in the big  heat of noon, we made three  long  circles
around some hills and finally came out into a meadow  full of little,  humpy
Masai  cattle  and, leaving  all shade behind, trailed back across  the open
country under the noon sun to the car.
     Kamau,  sitting in the car, had  seen  a kudu bull pass a hundred yards
away. He  was headed toward the saltlick at about nine o'clock when the wind
began  to  be tricky,  had evidently caught our scent and gone back into the
hills. Tired,  sweating,  and feeling  more  sunk than angry  now, I got  in
beside Kamau and we headed the car toward camp.  There  was only one evening
left now, and no reason to expect we would have any better luck than we were
having. As we came to  camp,  and the shade  of the heavy trees, cool  as  a
pool, I took the bolt out of the Springfield and handed the rifle, boltless,
to M'Cola without speaking or  looking at him. The bolt I  tossed inside the
opening of our tent on to my cot.
     Pop and P.O.M. were sitting under the dining tent.
     'No luck?' Pop asked gently.
     'Not a damn bit. Bull went by the car headed toward the salt. Must have
spooked off. We hunted all over hell.'
     'Didn't you see anything?' P.O.M. asked. 'Once we thought we heard  you
shoot.'
     'That was Garrick shooting his mouth off. Did the scouts get anything?'
     'Not a thing. We've been watching both hills.'
     'Hear from Karl?'
     'Not a word.'
     'I'd like to  have seen one,' I said. I was tired out and slipping into
bitterness fast. 'God damn them. What the hell did he have to blow that lick
to hell for  the first morning and gut-shoot a lousy bull and chase him  all
over the son-of-a-bitching country spooking it to holy bloody hell?'
     'Bastards,' said  P.O.M.,  staying with  me  in.  my  unreasonableness.
'Sonsabitches.'
     'You're a good girl,' I said. 'I'm all right. Or I will be.'
     'It's been. awful,' she said. 'Poor old Poppa.'
     'You have a drink,' Pop said. 'That's what you need.'
     'I've hunted them hard, Pop. I swear to God I have. I've enjoyed it and
I haven't worried up until to-day. I was so damned sure. Those damned tracks
all the time  -- what if I never see one? How do I know we can ever get back
here again?'
     'You'll  be back,' Pop  said. 'You don't have to  worry  about that. Go
ahead. Drink it.'
     'I'm just a lousy belly-aching bastard  but I swear they haven't gotten
on my nerves until to-day.'
     'Belly-ache,' said Pop. 'Better to get it out.'
     'What about lunch?' asked P.O.M. 'Aren't you frightfully hungry?'
     'The  hell with lunch. The thing is, Pop, we've  never seen them on the
salt in the evening and we've never seen  a bull in the hills. I've only got
to-night. It looks washed up. Three times  I've had them cold  and Karl  and
the Austrian and the Wanderobo beat us.'
     'We're not beaten,' said Pop. 'Drink another one of those.'
     We had lunch, a  very good lunch,  and it was just over when  Kati came
and said there  was someone  to  see Pop. We could see their shadows on  the
tent fly, then they came around to the front of the tent. It was the old man
of  the first day, the old farmer, but now he was gotten up as a  hunter and
carried a long bow and a sealed quiver of arrows.
     He looked older, more disreputable and tireder than ever and his get-up
was obviously a disguise. With him was the skinny, dirty, Wanderobo with the
slit and  curled up ears who stood  on one leg and scratched the back of his
knee with his toes. His head  was on one side and he had a  narrow, foolish,
and depraved-looking face.
     The old man was talking earnestly to Pop,  looking him in  the  eye and
speaking slowly, without gestures.
     'What's he done? Gotten himself up  like that  to get some of the scout
money?' I asked.
     'Wait,' Pop said.
     'Look at the pair  of  them,'  I said. 'That's goofy Wanderobo and that
lousy old fake. What's he say, Pop?'
     'He hasn't finished,' Pop said.
     Finally  the old man was  finished  and he  stood there leaning on  his
property bow.  They both looked  very  tired but  I  remember thinking  they
looked a couple of disgusting fakes.
     'He says,' Pop began, 'they have found a  country where there  are kudu
and sable. He has been there three days. They know where there is a big kudu
bull and he has a man watching him now.'
     'Do you believe it?' I could feel  the liquor and the fatigue drain out
of me and the excitement come in.
     'God knows,' said Pop.
     'How far away is the country?'
     'One  day's march. I suppose that's three  or four hours  in the car if
the car can go.'
     'Does he think the car can get in?'
     'None ever has been in but he thinks you can make it. '
     'When did they leave the man watching the kudu?'
     'This morning.'
     'Where are the sable?'
     'There in the hills.'
     'How do we get in?'
     'I can't  make  out  except that  you cross the  plain,  go around that
mountain and then  south. He says no one has  ever hunted there.  He  hunted
there when he was young. '
     'Do you believe it?'
     'Of course natives lie like hell, but he tells it very straight.'
     'Let's go.'
     'You'd  better start right away. Go as far  as  you  can in the car and
then use it for a base and hunt on from there. The Memsahib and I will break
camp in the morning, move the outfit and  go on to where Dan and Mr. T. are.
Once  the  outfit is over that  black  cotton stretch we're all right if the
rain  catches us. You come  on and join us. If  you're caught  we can always
send the  car back by Kandoa, if worst comes, and the  lorries down to Tanga
and around.'
     'Don't you want to come?'
     'No. You're better off alone on a show like this.  The  more people the
less game you'll see. You should hunt  kudu alone. I'll move the outfit  and
look after the little Memsahib.'
     'All right,' I said. 'And I don't have to take Garrick or Abdullah?'
     'Hell, no.  Take M'Cola, Kamau  and these two. I'll  teil Molo  to pack
your things. Go light as hell.'
     'God damn it, Pop. Do you think it could be true?'
     'Maybe,' said Pop. 'We have to play it.'
     'How do you say sable?'
     'Tarahalla.'
     'Valhalla, I can remember. Do the females have horns?'
     'Sure,  but you  can't make a mistake. The  bull  is black  and they're
brown. You can't go wrong.'
     'Has M'Cola ever seen one?'
     'I  don't  think so. You've got  four on your licence. Any time you can
better one, go ahead.'
     'Are they hard to kill?'
     'They're tough. They're  not like a kudu.  If you've  got one  down  be
careful how you walk up to him.'
     'What about time?'
     'We've got to get  out. Make  it back  to-morrow night if you  can. Use
your own judgment. I think this is the turning point. You'll get a kudu.'
     'Do you know what it's like?' I said. 'It's just like when we were kids
and we heard about a  river no one  had ever  fished out on the  huckleberry
plain beyond the Sturgeon and the Pigeon.'
     'How did the river turn out?'
     'Listen. We had a hell of a time to  get in and the night we got there,
just  before  dark, and saw it,  there was a deep  pool  and a long straight
stretch and the water so cold you couldn't keep your hand in it  and I threw
a cigarette butt in and a big trout hit it  and they kept snapping it up and
spitting it out as it floated until it went to pieces.'
     'Big trout?'
     'The biggest kind.'
     'God save us,' said Pop. 'What did you do then?'
     'Rigged up my rod  and made  a cast and it was dark,  and  there  was a
nighthawk  swooping around  and it was cold as a bastard and then I was fast
to three fish the second the flies hit the water.'
     'Did you land them?'
     'The three of them.'
     'You damned liar.'
     'I swear to God.'
     'I believe you. Tell  me  the  rest when you come back.  Were  they big
trout?'
     'The biggest bloody kind.'
     'God save us,' said Pop. 'You're going to get a kudu. Get started.'
     In the tent I found P.O.M. and told her.
     'Not really?'
     'Yes.'
     'Hurry up,' she said. 'Don't talk. Get started.'
     I  found  raincoat,  extra boots,  socks, bathrobe, bottle  of  quinine
tablets, citronella,  note  book,  a pencil,  my  solids, the  cameras,  the
emergency kit,  knife, matches,  extra  shirt and  undershirt, a  book,  two
candles, money, the flask . . .
     'What else?'
     'Have you got soap? Take a comb and a towel. Got handkerchiefs?'
     'All right.'
     Molo had  everything packed in a rucksack and I found my field glasses,
M'Cola taking Pop's big field glasses, a canteen with water and Kati sending
a chop-box with food. 'Take plenty of beer,' Pop said. 'You  can leave it in
the car. We're short on whisky but there's a bottle.'
     'How will that leave you?'
     'All right. There's more at the other camp. We sent two bottles on with
Mr. K.'
     'I'll only need the flask,' I said. 'We'll split the bottle.'
     'Take plenty of beer then. There's any amount of it.'
     'What's the bastard doing?' I said, pointing at Garrick who was getting
into the car.
     'He says you  and M'Cola wont be able  to talk  with the natives there.
You'll have to have some one to interpret.'
     'He's poison.'
     'You  {will}  need  someone  to  interpret  whatever  they  speak  into
Swahili.'
     'All  right. But  tell him he's not running the show  and to  keep  his
bloody mouth shut.'
     'We'll go to the  top of the hill  with you,' Pop said and  we  started
off,  the Wanderobo hanging to the side of the car.  'Going to pick  the old
man up in the village.'
     Everyone in camp was out to watch us go.
     'Have we plenty of salt?'
     'Yes.'
     Now we were standing by the  car on the road in the village waiting for
the old man and Garrick to come back from their huts. It was early afternoon
and the sky was  clouding over and I  was looking at P.O.M., very desirable,
cool, and  neat-looking in her khaki and her boots, her Stetson  on one side
of her head, and at Pop, big, thick, in the faded corduroy sleeveless jacket
that was almost white now from washing and the sun.
     'You be a good girl.'
     'Don't ever worry. I wish I could go.'
     'It's a one-man show,'  Pop said. 'You want to get in  fast  and do the
dirty and get out fast. You've a big load as it is.'
     The old man appeared and  got into the back of the car with M'Cola  who
was wearing my old khaki sleeveless, quail-shooting coat.
     'M'Cola's got the old man's coat,' Pop said.
     'He likes to carry things in the game pockets,' I said.
     M'Cola  saw  we  were  talking  about  him. I had forgotten  about  the
uncleaned rifle. Now I remembered it and said  to Pop, 'Ask him where he got
the new coat'.
     M'Cola grinned and said something.
     'He says it is his property.'
     I grinned at him  and he shook his old bald  head and it was understood
that I had said nothing about the rifle.
     'Where's that bastard Garrick?' I asked.
     Finally he came with his blanket and got in with M'Cola and the old man
behind. The Wanderobo sat with me in front beside Kamau.
     'That's  a lovely-looking friend  you have,'  P.O.M. said. 'You be good
too.'
     I kissed her good-bye and we whispered something.
     'Billing and cooing,' Pop said. 'Disgusting.'
     'Good-bye, you old bastard.'
     'Good-bye, you damned bullfighter.'
     'Good-bye, sweet.'
     'Good-bye and good luck.'
     'You've plenty of petrol and we'll leave some here,' Pop called.
     I waved and we were starting down hill through the village on  a narrow
track  that led  down and on to the  scrubby dry plain that spread out below
the two great blue hills.
     I looked  back as we went  down the hill  and saw the  two figures, the
tall thick  one and  the  small neat  one, each  wearing  big  Stetson hats,
silhouetted on the road as they walked back toward camp, then I looked ahead
at the dried-up, scrubby plain.


        PART IV

        PURSUIT AS HAPPINESS

        CHAPTER ONE

     The road was only a track and  the plain was very discouraging to  see.
As  we  went on we saw a few thin Grant's gazelles showing white against the
burnt yellow of the grass  and the grey trees. My exhilaration died with the
stretching out  of this  plain, the  typical  poor  game country, and it all
began  to {seem}.  very  impossible  and  romantic  and  quite  untrue.  The
Wanderobo had a very strong odour and I looked at  the way the lobes of  his
ear were stretched and then neatly wrapped on themselves and at his  strange
un-negroid, thin-lipped face. When  he saw me  studying his face  he  smiled
pleasantly and scratched his chest. I looked  around at the back of the car.
M'Cola  was  asleep.  Garrick  was  sitting  straight  up,  dramatizing  his
awakeness, and the old man was trying to see the road.
     By now  there was no more road, only a cattle track, but we were coming
to the edge of the plain. Then the plain was behind  us and ahead there were
big  trees and we were entering a country  the  loveliest that I had seen in
Africa. The grass was green and smooth, short as a meadow that has been mown
and is newly grown, and the trees  were big,  high-trunked,  and old with no
undergrowth but only the  smooth  green of the turf  like a deer park and we
drove on through shade and patches of  sunlight following  a faint trail the
Wanderobo pointed out. I could not  believe we had suddenly come to any such
wonderful country. It was a  country to  wake  from, happy to  have had  the
dream  and, seeing if  it  would  clown away, I reached  up  and touched the
Wanderobo's  ear. He jumped and Kamau snickered. M'Cola  nudged me from  the
back  seat  and  pointed  and  there, standing  in an open space between the
trees,  his head up, staring at us, the bristles  on his back  erect,  long,
thick,  white  tusks upcurving, his  eyes showing  bright, was a  very large
wart-hog boar watching us  from less than  twenty yards. I motioned to Kamau
to stop  and we sat looking at  him  and he  at us. I put  the rifle  up and
sighted on his chest. He watched and did not move. Then I motioned  to Kamau
to throw in the clutch and we went on and made a curve to the right and left
the wart-hog, who had never moved, nor showed any fright at seeing us.
     I could see that Kamau was excited and, looking back, M'Cola nodded his
head up  and  down in  agreement. None of  us had ever seen  a wart-hog that
would not bolt off, fast-trotting, tail in  air. This was a virgin  country,
an un-hunted pocket  in the million miles of bloody  Africa. I was  ready to
stop and make camp anywhere.
     This was the  finest country I had seen  but we went on,  winding along
through the big  trees over the softly rolling grass. Then ahead and  to the
right we  saw the high stockade of  a  Masai  village.  It was a  very large
village and out of it came running long-legged, brown, smooth-moving men who
all  seemed  to  be of  the same age  and who  wore their  hair  in a  heavy
club-like queue that swung against their shoulders as they ran. They came up
to the car and surrounded it, all laughing and smiling and talking. They all
were tall, their teeth were white and good, and their hair was stained a red
brown and arranged  in  a looped  fringe on their  foreheads.  They  carried
spears and they  were very  handsome and  extremely jolly, not  sullen,  nor
contemptuous like the northern Masai, and  they wanted to know what we  were
going to do. The Wanderobo evidently said we were hunting kudu and were in a
hurry. They had the  car surrounded so we could not move. One said something
and three or  four others joined  in and Kamau explained to me that they had
seen two kudu bulls go along the trail in the afternoon.
     'It can't be true,' I said to myself. 'It can't be.'
     I told  Kamau  to  start and  slowly we pushed  through them, they  all
laughing and trying  to  stop the car, making it all but run over them. They
were the tallest, best-built,  handsomest  people  I had  ever  seen and the
first truly light-hearted  happy people I had seen in Africa.  Finally, when
we were moving, they  started to run beside the car smiling and laughing and
showing how easily they could run and then, as the going was better,  up the
smooth valley of a stream, it became a contest and one after another dropped
out of the  running, waving  and smiling as they left until there  were only
two  still  running with  us, the  finest runners of  the lot, who kept pace
easily with the car as they moved  long-legged,  smoothly, loosely, and with
pride. They  were running too, at the pace  of  a fast  miler,  and carrying
their spears as well. Then we had  to turn to the right and climb out of the
putting-green smoothness of  the valley  into a rolling meadow  and,  as  we
slowed, climbing in first  gear, the whole pack  came up again, laughing and
trying not to seem winded. We  went  through  a little knot of  brush  and a
small  rabbit started out, zigzagging wildly and all the Masai behind now in
a mad sprint. They caught the rabbit and the tallest runner came up with him
to  the car and handed him to me. I  held him and could feel the thumping of
his heart through the soft, warm, furry body, and as I stroked him the Masai
patted my  arm.  Holding him  by the ears I  handed him back. No, no, he was
mine. He was  a present.  I  handed  him to M'Cola. M'Cola  did not take him
seriously and  handed him to one of the Masai. We were  moving and they were
running again now. The Masai stooped and put the rabbit on the ground and as
he ran  free  they all  laughed.  M'Cola shook  his  head. We  were all very
impressed by these Masai.
     'Good  Masai,'  M'Cola  said,  very moved. 'Masai many cattle. Masai no
kill to eat. Masai kill man.'
     The Wanderobo patted himself on the chest. 'Wanderobo . .  . Masai,' he
said,  very proudly, claiming  kin.  His ears were  curled  in  the same way
theirs were. Seeing them running and so damned handsome and so happy made us
all happy. I had never seen such quick disinterested friendliness, nor  such
fine-looking people.
     {'Good} Masai,' M'Cola repeated, nodding his head emphatically. {'Good,
good} Masai.' Only Garrick seemed impressed in a  different way. For all his
khaki  clothes  and his letter  from  B'wana  Simba, I  believe these  Masai
frightened  him  in a very old  place. They were our friends,  not his. They
certainly  were  our  friends though.  They  had  that  attitude  that makes
brothers, that unexpressed but instant and complete acceptance that you must
be  Masai wherever it is you come from. That  attitude you only get from the
best of the English, the best of the Hungarians and the very best Spaniards;
the thing that used to  be the most clear distinction of nobility when there
was nobility. It is an ignorant attitude  and  the people who have it do not
survive, but  very  few  pleasanter  things  ever  happen  to you  than  the
encountering of it.
     So now there were only the two of them left again, running, and  it was
hard  going and the  machine was beating  them. They were still running well
and still loose and long but  the machine was a  cruel pacemaker. So  I told
Kamau  to speed it up and get  it over with because  a sudden burst of speed
was  not  the  humiliation  of  a steady  using. They sprinted, were beaten,
laughed, and then  we were leaning  out, waving,  and they  stood leaning on
their spears and waved. We were  still great friends  but  now we were alone
again and there was no track, only  the general  direction to  follow around
clumps of trees and along the run of this green valley.
     After  a little the  trees grew  closer and we left the idyllic country
behind and  now  were picking our  way along a  faint  trail  through  thick
second-growth. Sometimes we  came to a dead halt and had to get out and pull
a  log  out of  the way or cut  a tree  that blocked the body  of  the  car.
Sometimes we had to back out of bush and look for a way to circle around and
come  upon  the trail again, chopping  our way through  with the long  brush
knives  that are called pangas.  The Wanderobo  was  a pitiful  chopper  and
Garrick was  little better.  M'Cola did everything well in which a knife was
used and  he swung a  panga with a fast yet heavy and vindictive  stroke.  I
used it badly. There was  too much wrist  in it  to learn  it quickly;  your
wrist tired and the blade seemed to have a weight  it did not have. I wished
that  I had  a Michigan double-bitted  axe, honed razor-sharp, to  chop with
instead of this sabring of trees.
     Chopping through  when we were  stopped,  avoiding all  we could, Kamau
driving  with  intelligence  and a  sound feeling for the country,  we  came
through the difficult  going and  out into  another  open-meadow stretch and
could  see a  range  of  hills off to our right.  But here there had been  a
recent heavy rain and  we had to be very careful about  the low parts of the
meadow where the tyres cut in through the turf to mud and spun  in the slick
greasiness. We cut brush and shovelled  out twice  and then,  having learned
not to trust any low part, we skirted  the high edge of the meadow and  then
were in  timber  again. As we  came out, after several  long  circles in the
woods to find places where we could get the car through, we were on the bank
of a stream, where there  was a sort of brushy bridging across the bed built
like  a  beaver  dam  and evidently designed to hold back the  water. On the
other side was a thorn-brush-fenced cornfield, a steep, stump-scattered bank
with  corn  planted  all  over  it  and  some  abandoned looking  corrals or
thorn-bush-fenced  enclosures with mud and stick buildings  and to the right
there  were cone-shaped grass huts projecting above a heavy thorn  fence. We
all got out, for this stream was a problem, and, on the other side, the only
place we could get up the bank led through the stump-filled maize field.
     The old man said the rain had come that day. There  had  been no  water
going over the brushy dam  when they had passed that  morning. I was feeling
fairly depressed. Here we  had  come  through a  beautiful country of virgin
timber where kudu had been once seen walking along the trail to end up stuck
on the bank of a little creek in someone's cornfield. I had not expected any
cornfield  and I resented it. I thought we would have to  get permission  to
drive through the maize, provided we could make it  across the stream and up
the bank  and  I took  off  my shoes and waded across the  stream to test it
underfoot.  The brush and saplings  on the  bottom were packed hard and firm
and  I was  sure we could cross if we took it fairly fast.  M'Cola and Kamau
agreed and we walked up the bank to see how it would be. The mud of the bank
was  soft but there was  dry  earth underneath and I figured we could shovel
our  way up if we could get through the stumps. But we would need to  unload
before we tried it.
     Coming  toward us, from the direction of the huts, were two men  and  a
boy. I  said  'Jambo', as they came up.  They answered 'Jambo', and then the
old man and the Wanderobo talked with  them. M'Cola shook his head at me. He
did not understand a word. I thought we were asking permission to go through
the corn. When the  old man finished talking the two men  came closer and we
shook hands.
     They looked like  no negroes I had ever  seen. Their  faces were a grey
brown, the oldest looked to be about fifty, had thin lips, an almost Grecian
nose,  rather  high cheekbones,  and  large, intelligent eyes. He  had great
poise and dignity and seemed to be very intelligent. The younger man had the
same  cast of features and I took him for a younger brother. He looked about
thirty-five.  The boy  was  as pretty as  a girl and looked rather  shy  and
stupid. I had thought he  was a  girl from his  face for an instant  when he
first  came up, as they all wore a  sort of Roman toga of unbleached  muslin
gathered at the shoulder that revealed no line of their bodies.
     They were  talking  with the  old man, who, now  that I looked  at  him
standing with  them,  seemed  to  bear  a sort  of  wrinkled and  degenerate
resemblance  to  the  classic-featured  owner  of  the shamba, just  as  the
Wanderobo-Masai was a shrivelled caricature of the handsome Masai we had met
in the forest.
     Then we all went down to the stream and Kamau and I rigged ropes around
the tyres  to act as chains while the Roman elder and the rest unloaded  the
car and carried the  heaviest things up the steep bank. Then we crossed in a
wild, water-throwing  smash and, all pushing heavily, made it halfway up the
bank before we stuck. We chopped and dug out and finally  made it to the top
of the  bank but ahead was that maize field and I could not  figure where we
were to go from there.
     'Where do we go?' I asked the Roman elder.
     They did not understand Garrick's interpreting and the old man made the
question clear.
     The Roman pointed  toward the heavy thorn-bush fence to the left at the
edge of the woods.
     'We can't get through there in the car.'
     'Campi,' said M'Cola, meaning we were going to camp there.
     'Hell of a place,' I said.
     'Campi,' M'Cola said firmly and they all nodded.
     'Campi! Campi!' said the old man.
     'There we camp,' Garrick announced pompously.
     'You go to hell,' I told him cheerfully.
     I walked toward the camp site  with the Roman who was talking  steadily
in a language  I could not understand a word of. M'Cola was  with me and the
others were loading and following with the car. I was remembering that I had
read you must never camp in abandoned native quarters because of  ticks  and
other hazards and I was preparing to hold  out against this camp. We entered
a break  in the  thorn-bush fence  and inside  was  a building of  logs  and
saplings stuck in the ground and crossed with branches. It looked like a big
chicken coop. The  Roman made us  free of this and  of the enclosure  with a
wave of his hand and kept on talking.
     'Bugs,' I said to M'Cola in Swahili, speaking with strong disapproval.
     'No,' he said, dismissing the idea. 'No bugs.'
     'Bad bugs. Many bugs. Sickness.'
     'No bugs,' he said firmly.
     The no-bugs had it and with the Roman talking steadily, I hoped on some
congenial  topic, the  car  came  up, stopped under a  huge tree about fifty
yards  from  the  thorn-bush  fence  and  they  all  commenced carrying  the
necessities in  for the  making  of  camp.  My ground-sheet  tent was  slung
between a tree and one side of the  chicken coop and I sat down  on a petrol
case to discuss the shooting  situation with  the  Roman,  the old  man, and
Garrick,  while  Kamau and  M'Cola  fixed  up a camp and the Wanderobo-Masai
stood on one leg and let his mouth hang open.
     'Where were kudu?'
     'Back there,' waving his arm.
     'Big ones?'
     Arms spread to show hugeness of horns and a torrent from the Roman.
     Me, dictionary-ing heavily, 'Where was the one they were watching?'
     No  results  on this  but a  long speech from the Roman which I took to
mean they were watching them all.
     It was  late afternoon now and the sky was heavy with clouds. I was wet
to the  waist and my socks were mud soaked. Also I was sweating from pushing
on the car and from chopping.
     'When do we start?' I asked.
     'To-morrow,' Garrick answered without bothering to question the Roman.
     'No,' I said. To-night.'
     'To-morrow,' Garrick said. 'Late now. One hour light.' He showed me one
hour on my watch.
     I dictionaried. 'Hunt to-night. Last hour best hour.'
     Garrick implied that the kudu were too far away. That it was impossible
to hunt and return, all this with gestures, 'Hunt to-morrow'.
     'You bastard,' I said  in English.  All this time the Roman and the old
man had  been standing saying  nothing. I shivered. It was cold with the sun
under the clouds in spite of the heaviness of the air after rain.
     'Old man,' I said.
     'Yes,  Master,'  said  the old man.  Dictionary-ing  carefully, I said,
'Hunt kudu to-night. Last hour best hour. Kudu close?'
     'Maybe.'
     'Hunt now?'
     They talked together.
     'Hunt to-morrow,' Garrick put in.
     'Shut up, you actor,' I said. 'Old man. Little hunt now?'
     'Yes,' said the old man and Roman nodded. 'Little while.'
     'Good,' I said, and went to  find a shirt  and undershirt and a pair of
socks.
     'Hunt now,' I told M'Cola.
     'Good,' he said. 'M'uzuri.'
     With the clean feeling of dry shirt, fresh socks and a  change of boots
I sat on the petrol case and drank a whisky and water while I waited for the
Roman to come back. I felt certain I was going to have a shot at kudu and  I
wanted to  take the edge off so I would not be nervous. Also I wanted not to
catch a cold. Also I wanted the whisky for itself, because I loved the taste
of  it and  because,  being  as happy  as I could be, it  made me feel  even
better.
     I saw the Roman coming and I pulled the zippers up on my boots, checked
the cartridges in the magazine  of the Springfield,  took  off the foresight
protector and blew through the rear aperture.  Then I drank what was left in
the tin cup that was on the ground by the box and stood up, checking  that I
had a pair of handkerchiefs in my shirt pockets.
     M'Cola came carrying his knife and Pop's big glasses.
     'You stay here,' I said to Garrick. He did not mind. He thought we were
silly to go out so late  and he  was glad to prove us  wrong. The  Wanderobo
wanted to go.
     'That's plenty,' I said, and  waved the old man back and we started out
of the corral with the Roman ahead, carrying  a spear, then me, then  M'Cola
with  glasses  and   the   Mannlicher,   full  of   solids,  and   last  the
Wanderobo-Masai with another spear.
     It was after five when we struck off across the maize field and down to
the stream, crossing where it narrowed in a high grass a hundred yards above
the  dam and then, walking slowly and carefully, went  up the grassy bank on
the far  side,  getting soaked to the waist as we stooped going through  the
wet  grass  and  bracken. We had  not been gone  ten minutes and were moving
carefully up the stream bank, when, without warning,  the  Roman grabbed  my
arm  and pulled me bodily down to the ground as he crouched; me pulling back
the bolt to cock the rifle as I  dropped. Holding his breath he pointed  and
across the stream on the far bank at the edge of the trees was a large, grey
animal, white stripes showing on his flanks and huge horns curling back from
his  head as he stood, broadside to us, head up, seeming to be listening.  I
raised the rifle, but  there was  a bush in the way of the shot. I could not
shoot over the bush without standing.
     'Piga,' whispered  M'Cola. I  shook my finger  and commenced  to  crawl
forward to be clear of the bush, sick afraid the bull would jump while I was
trying to make  the shot certain, but  remembering  Pop's 'Take  your time'.
When I saw I was clear I got on one knee, saw the bull through the aperture,
marvelling  at how  big  he looked, and  then,  remembering not  to  have it
matter, that  it was  the same  as  any other shot,  I saw the bead  centred
exactly where it should be just  below the  top of the shoulder and squeezed
off. At  the  roar he jumped and was  going into the brush, but I knew I had
hit him. I shot at a show of grey between the trees as he went in and M'Cola
was shouting, 'Piga! Piga!' meaning 'He's hit! He's hit!' and the Roman  was
slapping me on the shoulder, then he had his toga up around his neck and was
running naked, and the four of us were running now, full speed, like hounds,
splashing across the stream, tearing up the bank, the Roman  ahead, crashing
naked  through the  brush, then stooping and holding  up a  leaf with bright
blood, slamming me on the back, M'Cola saying, 'Damu! Damu!' (blood, blood),
then the deep cut tracks off  to the right, me reloading, we all trailing in
a  dead run, it almost dark in the timber, the  Roman, confused  a moment by
the trail, making a cast off to the right,  then picking up blood once more,
then pulling me down again with a jerk on my arm and none of us breathing as
we saw him  standing  in  a  clearing a  hundred yards ahead, looking to  me
hard-hit and  looking back, wide ears spread, big, grey,  white-striped, his
horns a marvel, as he looked straight toward us over his shoulder. I thought
I must make absolutely sure this time, now, with  the dark coming and I held
my breath and shot him a touch behind the fore-shoulder. We heard the bullet
smack  and saw him buck heavily with the shot. M'Cola shouted, 'Piga!  Piga!
Piga!' as he went  out  of sight and as we ran again, like hounds, we almost
fell  over something. It was a huge, beautiful kudu bull, stone-dead, on his
side, his horns in great dark spirals, widespread and unbelievable as he lay
dead five  yards from  where we stood when I had  just  that instant shot. I
looked at him, big,  long-legged,  a smooth grey with  the white stripes and
the great curling, sweeping horns, brown as walnut meats, and ivory pointed,
at  the big ears and the  great, lovely heavy-maned  neck, the white chevron
between his eyes and the white  of his muzzle and I stooped over and touched
him to try to believe it. He was lying on the side where the bullet had gone
in and there was not a  mark on him and he smelled sweet and lovely like the
breath of cattle and the odour of thyme after rain.
     Then the Roman had his arms around my neck and M'Cola was shouting in a
strange high sing-song voice and Wanderobo-Masai  kept slapping  me  on  the
shoulder and jumping up and down and then one after the other they all shook
hands in a strange way that I had never known in which they  took your thumb
in  their  fist  and  held it and shook it and pulled it and held  it again,
while they looked you in the eyes, fiercely.
     We all looked at him and M'Cola knelt and traced the curve of his horns
with