Читать книгу Tales from the Veld - Glanville Ernest - Страница 10

There can be no denying that we were reaping a plentiful crop of misfortunes, to which farmers in South Africa are especially exposed. The cattle thieves had mysteriously come and swiftly gone, taking with them a few head of stock into the dense cover of the Fish River Bush, thence to slip them at favourable opportunities into Kaffraria. Then, one morning the news was brought in that a pack of wild dogs, issuing from the Kowie Bush on the west, had sallied out on a rush over the intervening belt of well-stocked cattle country into the Fish River Valley, and there were few farms on the route that had not suffered. At one place a heifer had been pulled down and eaten; at another, a cow had been attacked and so mauled that death from a rifle-ball was a happy release; and on my place the pack had stampeded a mob of young cattle, ran down and killed a steer, besides leaving their marks on many others. In one night they had covered fifteen miles from one wooded fastness to the other, killing as they went, and when in the morning the angry farmers fingered their guns the brutes were resting secure in the distant woods. The wild dogs hunt in packs when after game, and according to a well arranged plan. Thus, one part of the pack will head the quarry in a certain direction where other members are lying in wait, but when on a wild rush across the veld they keep together, and on coming across cattle or sheep they bite or kill out of sheer lust of blood, seldom stopping to eat. Their jaws are enormously powerful, and with a snap and a wrench they tear away mouthfuls of flesh – so that if a pack gets among a flock of sheep they do a vast deal of mischief, and though they cannot pull down an ox, they will cause the death of a cow by tearing at her udder and belly. Fortunately their raids into the comparatively open veld are not frequent, and they prefer to keep in the shelter of wide stretches of bush until game becoming scarce they shift quarters, when they may sometimes be caught in an isolated kloof and shot or poisoned.

Uncle Abe had something to say when I met him next at the monthly meeting of our Farmers’ Association – an organisation of six paying members and fifteen members who never had enough cash to pay, but who regularly attended on the chance of getting a square meal from any one of the five whose turn it was to give up his largest room to the meeting. Uncle Abe did most of the orating, and it frequently happened indeed that the formal business would be forgotten, while Abe from his usual seat on the door-step held forth on the peculiar gifts of “animiles.” His idea was that all branches of animal life acted under a stringent code of laws and regulations.

“Take these yer wild dogs,” he said, pointing the stem of his well-chewed pipe at the President, who sat at the end of the dining-room table waiting patiently for a nervous young farmer to read his painfully prepared paper on the vexed question of “Inoculation as a Cure for Lung-sickness.”

“Take these yer wild dogs. Haven’t they got a leader? They have. Of course they have, and wha’ jer think they’ve got a leader for if it isn’t to follow him or her – for more often than not the leader’s a she; and wha’ jer think they foller him or her if it ain’t because they’ve got rules and regulations which are be-known to that leader?”

“Don’t they follow the leader because he happens to be the strongest in the pack?” asked the nervous member anxiously, bent on shirking his task.

“We ain’t going to follow your lead this afternoon on that score,” said Abe caustically. “No sir, they follow the leader not because he is the strongest, but for the reason that he knows the rules and regilations.”

“Have you seen a printed copy, Abe?” asked one member shyly.

“No, sir. It’s only human beings that ain’t got sense enough to know what they are setting out to do unless they put everything in print. A human being wants to know everything, and he don’t know nothing; but a animile he calkalates to know what’s necessary for him, and when he learns his lesson he don’t want any noospaper to tell him about it – you jes’ put that in your pipe. Now take your case – ”

“Have some baccy, Uncle,” said the interrupting member eagerly.

“Don’t mind if I do. Lemme see. I were jes’ going to tell ye a yarn about some wild dogs, but I see the President’s waiting for our young friend to ’lighten us about ’noculation, which is good on his part, considerin’ there’s some here as were curing lung-sick cattle before he were born.”

“My paper can wait,” said the young farmer, hastily stuffing his notes into his pocket. “Let us have your story.”

“Drive ahead, ole man.”

“Well, if it’s the wish of the meeting, I’m at your service. If I remember, ’twere away back in the sixties, when game were pretty thick in these parts, and a pack took up lodgings in the big kloof over yonder. I was mor’n ordinarily busy building my shed, and hadn’t much time to give any heed to them, though I yeard em often giving tongue as they went after buck, and saw one of ’em sneaking along right up to the old tree afore my door in the mealie garden. The brute were on the spoor of a big black ram, which had taken that track from the big kloof to a smaller shelter for a constitutional. I yapped at him, and after looking at me with his big ears cocked and the round muzzle of his dirty head held up, the yellow critter turned and went nosing back. Two days after I seed three of ’em stealing up across the veld, and blow me if they didn’t come right up to the mealie patch. One of ’em lay down at the bottom, the other come up to the top corner, and the third, a big chap with a round belly, he stood back of the tree squinting round the trunk. Thinks I, what’s up? and lighting the pipe, I jes’ plumped down behind a bush, with the ole gun over my knee. The air was still, with the drone of the sea, coming like the hum of a big bluebottle, and bymby, through the stillness I yeard the sudden excited yapping of the pack, followed after a spell by a loud bark, I looked at the three dogs, and they was all looking across the veld with the water running from their mouths. Casting my eye acrost the veld, there I seed a black spot in the distance. It was the ram, sure enough, who had been put up in the kloof and were now making for his second hiding-place. He were taking it easy, though the wind was coming straight to him from the pack behind. He came right on, with his head up, then he slowed down to a walk, and looked back over his shoulder. Away back there were something moving, a dark in-and-out patch, the pack on the spoor, and I seed the ram shake his head and stamp with his hoof. Then he gave a short bark, sort of defiant, and on he trotted again; but this time he turned away to the left, as if he’d got a sudden fancy for the scattered bush clumps about a mile over the ridge that way. Well, sir, he hadn’t covered more’n fifty yards when a yeller dog rose up and yapped at him. The ram, he stood still, with his head up, looking at this oudacious critter, when the pack behind gave tongue altogether, and the sound of it made him skeered, for he wheeled round and came at a smart pace right for the big tree and the mealie garden. I turned my head, biting through my pipe, I was that excited, and I seed those two corner dogs creeping nearer to the big one, who was standing back of the tree, with his teeth showing and his tail twitching. Then I yeard the steps of the ram, and there he were sailing along over the bushes, and the ant-hills, his eyes full and bright with the light o’ courage in ’em – for you know, gentlemen, that the bush-buck carries a stout and gallant heart in his great chest.”

“Ay, ay, Uncle; so he does.”

“There he came, his sharp hoofs pricking into the ground, his legs slender and shapely, his great haunches gathering up as he cleared everything in his way, and the points of his short, strong horns catching the sparkle of the sun. Right for the tree he went, then on a sudden he stopped and looked full ahead, his ears turned backward, but his gaze fixed on a pair of gleaming eyes that glared at him. As he stood there, as big as a year-old calf, with his side to me, I could ha’ driven a ball through his heart; but I didn’t as much as go beyon’ closin’ my grasp on the rifle. I wouldn’t a shot him – no, not in them cirkumstances. There were a duel of staring between those two for a full half-minute, and in that time those other two yellow critturs were slinking through the long grass bordering the mealies. Nex’ thing they’d a been on him from each side, with that other cur comin’ up from behind, not to speak of the pack hurrying up and of the big chap behind the tree, when I gave a shout: ‘Look out!’ say I, jes’ as if he were a human. ‘Look out!’ says I, and the chap that was nearest me he rose up outer the grass and jumped for the ram. You never seed sich a thing. For all the ram had got his eyes on the big chap, he slewed his head round quicker’n lightning, his horns went down, and the next thing that yeller critter was lying on his back yelping, with a hole in his neck.

“The ram shook his head, and a tiny red mark went winding down the furrows of his horn nearest me. Eh! you should a seen him and I jes’ held my breath, while my legs shook so I was obliged to stand up. Back of him came the pack – silent now, and the speediest of ’em slipping along like shadders, while two of the critters stood each side of the ram watching him, and the big one standing clear of the tree, staring at the great blazing eyes with his mean little yeller peepers. Suddenly the big chap gave a few orders, sharp and snapping, and four leaders from the pack shot out, two going one side and two the other. They were surrounding the ram, and he knew it. He made a bound forward, and the same minute the two dogs nearest him sprang open-mouthed, one of ’em taking a clear mouthful outer the haunch. The ram swerved, and the big chap waiting for him went for his belly, but the ram bounded into the air, and when he came down he wheeled round with his back to the tree. The dogs they jes’ drew off and sat in a ring staring at him, one and another opening his big jaws and bringing the white teeth together with a snap, but the sight of that circle didn’t shake the nerve of the buck, for he shook his head at ’em and stamped his hoofs. One of the young critters growing impatient ran in, but got a stroke from the pointed hoof for his pains. Well, I were that ’xcited I moved towards the tree, the pack jes’ giving me one look, then closed in a step or two. Three times the circle were drawn closer, and the sight of those staring eyes from outer those ugly round heads fairly made me shudder. I up with the gun and let ’em have a charge of slugs. In the confusion the ram went off full slick this time, and the dogs, with a whimper, scattered after him; but ’twas no use, he give ’em leg bail, and believe me them critters come sneakin’ back and s’rounded me. They did that.”

“Did they think you were good to eat?”

“’Pears so, for they sat on their tails regarding me with loving looks. I shoo’d to them, but they didn’t shoo a inch. I went for ’em with the gun clubbed, but while those in front give way, those ahind came perilously near my legs. I heerd the snap of their steel jaws, but when I turned there they were sitting down with their heads on one side. Each time I tried that it were the same; and when I give up, there they sat in a ring round me. Then I jes’ swung up into the tree and snapped my fingers at em.

“If I were to tell you what them ere wild dogs did, you ’ud up and say the old man were a liar.”

“You hurt our feelings, Uncle.”

“Well, that big leader he up and made a speech – not a oration like our gifted young friend here can make, but a few yaps and growls. After he had finished they give him a cheer, and fell to scooping a big trench round the tree. Then they gnawed the roots through. Then they boosted the tree down. Yes, gentlemen, them wild dogs which you would call unthinking critters, deliberately dug up that big tree with their teeth, so’s to get hold o’ me.”

“Hum! Did they eat you, Uncle?”

“They boosted the tree down; but while they stood away off, I lit on my feet and were inside the house ’fore you could say Jack Robinson. Yes, that’s so.”