after that day no one spoke of “the rat” or “the odd puppy,” or used any of the numberless nicknames that they had given him, such as “the specimen,” “the object,” “number 6,” “bully-beef,” (because he got his head stuck in a half-pound tin one day), “the scrap”; and even “the duke of wellington” ceased to be a gibe. they still laughed at his ridiculous dignity; and they loved to tease him to see him stiffen with rage and hear his choky little growls; but they liked his independence and admired his tremendous pluck. so they respected his name when he got one.
and his name was “jock.”
no one bothered about the other puppies’ names: they were known as “billy’s pup,” “jimmy’s pup,” “old joe’s darling,” “yellow jack,” and “bandy-legged sue”; but they seemed to think that this little chap had earned his name, fighting his way without anybody’s help and with everything against him; so they gave up all the nicknames and spoke of him as “jock.”
jock got such a good advertisement by his fight with the table-leg that every one took notice of him now and remarked about what he did; and as he was only a very young puppy, they teased him, fed him, petted him, and did their best to spoil him. he was so young that it did not seem to matter, but i think if he had not been a really good dog at heart he would have been quite spoilt.
he soon began to grow and fill out; and it was then that he taught the other puppies to leave him alone. if they had not interfered with him he might perhaps have left them alone, as it was not his nature to interfere with others; but the trouble was they had bullied him so much while he was weak and helpless that he got used to the idea of fighting for everything. it is probably the best thing that could have happened to jock that as a puppy he was small and weak, but full of pluck; it compelled him to learn how to fight; it made him clever, cool, and careful, for he could not afford to make mistakes. when he fought he meant business; he went for a good spot, bit hard, and hung on for all he was worth; then, as the enemy began to slacken, he would start vigorously worrying and shaking. i often saw him shake himself off his feet, because the thing he was fighting was too heavy for him.
the day jock fought the two big puppies—one after the other—for his bone, and beat them off, was the day of his independence; we all saw the tussle, and cheered the little chap. and then for one whole day he had peace; but it was like the pause at low water before the tide begins to flow the other way. he was so used to being interfered with that i suppose he did not immediately understand they would never tackle him again.
it took a whole day for him to realise this; but as soon as he did understand it he seemed to make up his mind that now his turn had come, and he went for the first puppy he saw with a bone. he walked up slowly and carefully, and began to make a circle round him. when he got about half-way round the puppy took up the bone and trotted off; but jock headed him off at once, and again began to walk towards him very slowly and stiffly. the other puppy stood quite still for a moment, and then jock’s fierce determined look was too much for him: he dropped the bone and bolted.
there was mighty little but smell on those bones, for we gave the puppies very little meat, so when jock had taken what he could off this one, he started on another hunt. a few yards away billy’s pup was having a glorious time, struggling with a big bone and growling all the while as if he wanted to let the world know that it was as much as any one’s life was worth to come near him. none of us thought jock would tackle him, as billy’s pup was still a long way the biggest and strongest of the puppies, and always ready to bully the others.
jock was about three or four yards away when he caught sight of billy’s pup, and for about a minute he stood still and quietly watched. at first he seemed surprised, and then interested, and then gradually he stiffened up all over in that funny way of his; and when the hair on his shoulders was all on end and his ears and tail were properly up, he moved forward very deliberately. in this fashion he made a circle round billy’s pup, keeping about two feet away from him, walking infinitely slowly and glaring steadily at the enemy out of the corners of his eyes; and while he was doing this, the other fellow was tearing away at his bone, growling furiously and glaring sideways at jock. when the circle was finished they stood once more face to face; and then after a short pause jock began to move in closer, but more slowly even than before.
billy’s pup did not like this: it was beginning to look serious. he could not keep on eating and at the same time watch jock; moreover, there was such a very unpleasant wicked look about jock, and he moved so steadily and silently forward, that any one would feel a bit creepy and nervous; so he put his paw on the bone and let out a string of snarly barks, with his ears flat on his neck and his tail rather low down. but jock still came on—a little more carefully and slowly perhaps, but just as steadily as ever. when about a foot off the enemy’s nose he changed his direction slightly, as if to walk past, and billy’s pup turned his head to watch him, keeping his nose pointed towards jock’s, but when they got side by side he again looked straight in front of him.
perhaps he did this to make sure the bone was still there, or perhaps to show his contempt when he thought jock was going off. whatever the reason was, it was a mistake; for, as he turned his head away, jock flew at him, got a good mouthful of ear, and in no time they were rolling and struggling in the dust—jock’s little grunts barely-audible in the noise made by the other one. billy’s pup was big and strong, and he was not a coward; but jock was worrying his ear vigorously, and he could not find anything to bite in return. in less than a minute he began to howl, and was making frantic efforts to get away. then jock let go the ear and tackled the bone.
after that he had no more puppy fights. as soon as any one of the others saw jock begin to walk slowly and carefully towards him he seemed to suddenly get tired of his bone, and moved off.
most dogs—like most people—when their hearts fail them will try to hide the truth from one another and make some sort of effort or pretence to keep their dignity or self-respect or the good opinion of others. you may see it all any day in the street, when dogs meet and stop to ‘size’ each other up. as a rule the perfectly shameless cowards are found in the two extreme classes—the outcasts, whose spirits are broken by all the world being against them; and the pampered darlings, who have never had to do anything for themselves. many dogs who are clearly anxious to get out of fighting will make a pretence of bravery at the time, or at least cover up their cowardice, with a ‘wait-till-i-catch-you-next-time’ air, as soon as they are at a safe distance. day after day at the outspans the puppies went through every stage of the business, to our constant amusement and to my unconcealed pride; for jock was thenceforth cock of the walk. if they saw him some distance off moving towards them or even staring hard and with his ears and tail up, the retreat would be made with a gloomy and dignified air, sometimes even with growls just loud enough to please themselves without provoking him; if he was fairly close up when spotted they wasted no time in putting on airs, but trotted off promptly; but sometimes they would be too busy to notice anything until a growl or a rustle in the grass close behind gave warning; and it was always followed by a jump and a shameless scuttle, very often accompanied by a strangled sort of yowling yelp, just as if he had already got them by the ear or throat.
some of them became so nervous that we could not resist playing practical jokes on them—making sudden strange noises, imitating jock’s growls, tossing bits of bark at them or touching them from behind with a stick while they were completely occupied with their bones—for the fun of seeing the stampede and hearing the sudden howls of surprise and fright.
one by one the other puppies were taken away by their new masters, and before jock was three months old he and jess were the only dogs with the waggons. then he went to school, and like all schoolboys learnt some things very quickly—the things that he liked; and some things he learnt very slowly, and hated them just as a boy hates extra work in play-time. when i poked about with a stick in the banks of dongas to turn out mice and field-rats for him, or when i hid a partridge or a hare and made him find it, he was as happy as could be; but when i made him lie down and watch my gun or coat while i pretended to go off and leave him, he did not like it; and as for his lessons in manners! well, he simply hated them.
there are some things which a dog in that sort of life simply must learn or you cannot keep him; and the first of these is, not to steal. every puppy will help himself until he is taught not to; and your dog lives with you and can get at everything. at the outspans the grub-box is put on the ground, open for each man to help himself; if you make a stew, or roast the leg of a buck, the big three-legged pot is put down handy and left there; if you are lucky enough to have some tinned butter or condensed milk, the tins are opened and stood on the ground; and if you have a dog thief in the camp, nothing is safe.
there was a dog with us once—a year or two later—who was the worst thief i ever knew. he was a one-eyed pointer with feet like a duck’s, and his name was snarleyow. he looked the most foolish and most innocent dog in the world, and was so timid that if you stumbled as you passed him he would instantly start howling and run for the horizon. the first bad experience i had of snarley was on one of the little hunting trips which we sometimes made in those days, away from the waggons. we travelled light on those occasions, and, except for some tea and a very little flour and salt, took no food; we lived on what we shot and of course kept ‘hunter’s pot.’
‘hunter’s pot’ is a perpetual stew; you make one stew, and keep it going as long as necessary, maintaining a full pot by adding to it as fast as you take any out; scraps of everything go in; any kind of meat—buck, bird, pig, hare—and if you have such luxuries as onions or potatoes, so much the better; then, to make the soup strong, the big bones are added—the old ones being fished out every day and replaced by a fresh lot. when allowed to cool it sets like brawn, and a hungry hunter wants nothing better.
we had had a good feed the first night of this trip and had then filled the pot up leaving it to simmer as long as the fire lasted, expecting to have cold pie set in jelly—but without the pie-crust—for early breakfast next morning before going off for the day; but, to our amazement, in the morning the pot was empty. there were some strange kaffirs—camp followers—hanging on to our trail for what they could pick up, and we suspected them. there was a great row, but the boys denied having touched the pot, and we could prove nothing.
that night we made the fire close to our sleeping-place and moved the kaffirs further away, but next morning the pot was again empty—cleaned and polished as if it had been washed out. while we, speechless with astonishment and anger, were wondering who the thief was and what we should do with him, one of the hunting boys came up and pointed to the prints of a dog’s feet in the soft white ashes of the dead fire. there was only one word: “snarleyow.” the thief was lying fast asleep comfortably curled up on his master’s clothes. there could be no mistake about those big splayed footprints, and in about two minutes snarleyow was getting a first-class hammering, with his head tied inside the three-legged pot for a lesson.
after that he was kept tied up at night; but snarleyow was past curing. we had practically nothing to eat but what we shot, and nothing to drink but bush tea—that is, tea made from a certain wild shrub with a very strong scent; it is not nice, but you drink it when you cannot get anything else. we could not afford luxuries then, but two days before ted’s birthday he sent a runner off to komati drift and bought a small tin of ground coffee and a tin of condensed milk for his birthday treat. it was to be a real feast that day, so he cut the top off the tin instead of punching two holes and blowing the milk out, as we usually did in order to economise and keep out the dust and insects. what we could not use in the coffee that day we were going to spread on our ‘dough-boys’ instead of butter and jam. it was to be a real feast!
the five of us sat down in a circle and began on our hunter’s pot, saving the good things for the last. while we were still busy on the stew, there came a pathetic heartbreaking yowl from snarleyow, and we looked round just in time to see him, his tail tucked between his legs and his head high in the air, bolting off into the bush as hard as he could lay legs to the ground, with the milk tin stuck firmly on to his nose. the greedy thief in trying to get the last scrap out had dug his nose and top jaw too far in, and the jagged edges of the tin had gripped him; and the last we saw of our birthday treat was the tin flashing in the sunlight on snarley’s nose as he tore away howling into the bush. snarleyow came to a bad end: his master shot him as he was running off with a ham. he was a full-grown dog when he came to our camp, and too old to learn principles and good manners.
dogs are like people: what they learn when they are young, whether of good or of evil, is not readily forgotten. i began early with jock, and—remembering what rocky had said—tried to help him. it is little use punishing a dog for stealing if you take no trouble about feeding him. that is very rough on the dog; he has to find out slowly and by himself what he may take, and what he may not. sometimes he leaves what he was meant to take, and goes hungry; and sometimes takes what was not intended for him, and gets a thrashing. that is not fair. you cannot expect to have a good dog, and one that will understand you, if you treat him in that way. some men teach their dogs not to take food from any one but themselves. one day when we were talking about training dogs, ted told one of the others to open jess’s mouth and put a piece of meat in it, he undertaking not to say a word and not even to look at her. the meat was put in her mouth and her jaws were shut tight on it; but the instant she was free she dropped it, walked round to the other side of ted and sat close up to him. he waited for a minute or so and, without so much as a glance at her, said quietly “all right.” she was back again in a second and with one hungry bite bolted the lump of meat.
i taught jock not to touch food in camp until he was told to ‘take it.’ the lesson began when he got his saucer of porridge in the morning; and he must have thought it cruel to have that put in front of him, and then to be held back or tapped with a finger on the nose each time he tried to dive into it. at first he struggled and fought to get at it; then he tried to back away and dodge round the other side; then he became dazed, and, thinking it was not for him at all, wanted to walk off and have nothing more to do with it. in a few days, however, i got him to lie still and take it only when i patted him and pushed him towards it; and in a very little time he got on so well that i could put his food down without saying anything and let him wait for permission. he would lie down with his head on his paws and his nose right up against the saucer, so as to lose no time when the order came; but he would not touch it until he heard ‘take it.’ he never moved his head, but his little browny dark eyes, full of childlike eagerness, used to be turned up sideways and fixed on mine. i believe he watched my lips; he was so quick to obey the order when it came.
when he grew up and had learned his lessons there was no need for these exercises. he got to understand me so well that if i nodded or moved my hand in a way that meant ‘all right,’ he would go ahead: by that time too he was dignified and patient; and it was only in his puppyhood that he used to crouch up close to his food and tremble with impatience and excitement.
there was one lesson that he hated most of all. i used to balance a piece of meat on his nose and make him keep it there until the word to take it came.
time after time he would close his eyes as if the sight of the meat was more than he could bear, and his mouth would water so from the savoury smell that long streels of dribble would hang down on either side.
it seems unnecessary and even cruel to tantalise a dog in that way; but it was not: it was education; and it was true kindness. it taught him to understand his master, and to be obedient, patient, and observant; it taught him not to steal; it saved him from much sickness, and perhaps death, by teaching him not to feed on anything he could find; it taught him manners and made it possible for him to live with his master and be treated like a friend.
good feeding, good care, and plenty of exercise soon began to make a great change in jock. he ceased to look like a beetle—grew bigger everywhere, not only in one part as he had done at first; his neck grew thick and strong, and his legs straightened up and filled out with muscle. the others, seeing him every day, were slow to notice these things, but my sand had been changed into gold long ago, and they always said i could not see anything wrong in jock.
there was one other change which came more slowly and seemed to me much more wonderful. after his morning feed, if there was nothing to do, he used to go to sleep in some shady place, and i remember well one day watching him as he lay. his bit of shade had moved away and left him in the bright sunshine; and as he breathed and his ribs rose and fell, the tips of the hairs on his side and back caught the sunlight and shone like polished gold, and the wavy dark lines seemed more distinct and darker, but still very soft. in fact, i was astonished to see that in a certain light jock looked quite handsome. that was the first time i noticed the change in colour; and it made me remember two things. the first was what the other fellows had said the day billy gave up his pup, “you can’t tell how a puppy will turn out: even his colour changes;” and the second was a remark made by an old hunter who had offered to buy jock—the real meaning of which i did not understand at the time.
“the best dog i ever owned was a golden brindle,” said the old man thoughtfully, after i had laughed at the idea of selling my dog. i had got so used to thinking that he was only a faded wishy-washy edition of jess that the idea of his colour changing did not occur to me then, and i never suspected that the old man could see how he would turn out; but the touch of sunlight opened my eyes that day, and after that whenever i looked at jock the words “golden brindle” came back to my mind, and i pictured him as he was going to be—and as he really did grow up—having a coat like burnished gold with soft, dark, wavy brindles in it and that snow-white v on his chest.
jock had many things to learn besides the lessons he got from me—the lessons of experience which nobody could teach him. when he was six months old—just old enough, if he had lived in a town, to chase a cat and make a noise—he knew many things that respectable puppies of twice his age who stay at home never get a chance of learning.
on trek there were always new places to see, new roads to travel, and new things to examine, tackle or avoid. he learnt something fresh almost every day: he learnt, for instance, that, although it was shady and cool under the waggon, it was not good enough to lie in the wheel track, not even for the pleasure of feeling the cool iron tyre against your back or head as you slept; and he knew that, because one day he had done it and the wheel had gone over his foot; and it might just as easily have been his back or head. fortunately the sand was soft and his foot was not crushed; but he was very lame for some days, and had to travel on the waggon.
he learned a good deal from jess: among other things, that it was not necessary to poke his nose up against a snake in order to find out what it was. he knew that jess would fight anything; and when one day he saw her back hair go up and watched her sheer off the footpath wide into the grass, he did the same; and then when we had shot the snake, both he and jess came up very very cautiously and sniffed at it, with every hair on their bodies standing up.
he found out for himself that it was not a good idea to turn a scorpion over with his paw. the vicious little tail with a thorn in it whipped over the scorpion’s back, and jock had such a foot that he must have thought a scorpion worse than two waggons. he was a very sick dog for some days; but after that, whenever he saw a thing that he did not understand, he would watch it very carefully from a little way off and notice what it did and what it looked like, before trying experiments.
so, little by little, jock got to understand plenty of things that no town dog would ever know, and he got to know—just as some people do—by what we call instinct, whether a thing was dangerous or safe, even though he had never seen anything like it before. that is how he knew that wolves or lions were about—and that they were dangerous—when he heard or scented them; although he had never seen, scented or heard one before to know what sort of animal it might be. you may well wonder how he could tell whether the scent or the cry belonged to a wolf which he must avoid, or to a buck which he might hunt, when he had never seen either a wolf or a buck at the time; but he did know; and he also knew that no dog could safely go outside the ring of the camp fires when wolf or lion was about. i have known many town-bred dogs that could scent them just as well as jess or jock could, but having no instinct of danger they went out to see what it was, and of course they never came back.
i used to take jock with me everywhere so that he could learn everything that a hunting dog ought to know, and above all things to learn that he was my dog, and to understand all that i wanted to tell him. so while he was still a puppy, whenever he stopped to sniff at something new or to look at something strange, i would show him what it was; but if he stayed behind to explore while i moved on, or if he fell asleep and did not hear me get up from where i had sat down to rest, or went off the track on his own account, i used to hide away from him on top of a rock or up a tree and let him hunt about until he found me.
at first he used to be quite excited when he missed me, but after a little time he got to know what to do and would sniff along the ground and canter away after me—always finding me quite easily. even if i climbed a tree to hide from him he would follow my track to the foot of the tree, sniff up the trunk as far as he could reach standing up against it, and then peer up into the branches. if he could not see me from one place, he would try another—always with his head tilted a bit on one side. he never barked at these times; but as soon as he saw me, his ears would drop, his mouth open wide with the red tongue lolling out, and the stump of a tail would twiggle away to show how pleased he was. sometimes he would give a few little whimpery grunts: he hardly ever barked; when he did i knew there was something worth looking at.
jock was not a quarrelsome dog, and he was quick to learn and very obedient, but in one connection i had great difficulty with him for quite a little time. he had a sort of private war with the fowls; and it was due to the same cause as his war with the other puppies: they interfered with him. now, every one knows what a fowl is like: it is impudent, inquisitive, selfish, always looking for something to eat, and has no principles.
a friend of mine once told me a story about a dog of his and the trouble he had with fowls. several of us had been discussing the characters of dogs, and the different emotions they feel and manage to express, and the kind of things they seem to think about. every one knows that a dog can feel angry, frightened, pleased, and disappointed. any one who knows dogs will tell you that they can also feel anxious, hopeful, nervous, inquisitive, surprised, ashamed, interested, sad, loving, jealous, and contented—just like human beings.
we had told many stories illustrating this, when my friend asked the question: “have dogs a sense of humour?” now i know that jock looked very foolish the day he fought the table-leg—and a silly old hen made him look just as foolish another day—but that is not quite what my friend meant. on both occasions jock clearly felt that he had made himself look ridiculous; but he was very far from looking amused. the question was: is a dog capable of sufficient thinking to appreciate a simple joke, and is it possible for a dog to feel amused. if jess had seen jock bursting to fight the table-leg would she have seen the joke? well, i certainly did not think so; but he said he was quite certain some dogs have a sense of humour; and he had had proof of it.
he told the story very gravely, but i really do not even now know whether he—well, here it is: he had once owned a savage old watch-dog, whose box stood in the back-yard where he was kept chained up all day; he used to be fed once a day—in the mornings—and the great plague of his life was the fowls. they ran loose in the yard and picked up food all day, besides getting a really good feed of grain morning and evening; possibly the knowledge of this made the old dog particularly angry when they would come round by ones or twos or dozens trying to steal part of his one meal. anyhow, he hated them, and whenever he got a chance killed them. the old fowls learned to keep out of his way and never ventured within his reach unless they were quite sure that he was asleep or lying in his kennel where he could not see them; but there were always new fowls coming, or young ones growing up; and so the war went on.
one sunday morning my friend was enjoying a smoke on his back stoep when feeding time came round. the cook took the old dog’s food to him in a high three-legged pot, and my friend, seeing the fowls begin to gather round and wishing to let the old dog have his meal in peace, told the cook to give the fowls a good feed in another part of the yard to draw them off. so the old fellow polished off his food and licked the pot clean, leaving not a drop or a speck behind.
but fowls are very greedy; they were soon back again wandering about, with their active-looking eyes searching everything. the old dog, feeling pretty satisfied with life, picked out a sandy spot in the sunshine, threw himself down full stretch on his side, and promptly went to sleep—at peace with all the world. immediately he did this, out stepped a long-legged athletic-looking young cockerel and began to advance against the enemy. as he got nearer he slowed down, and looked first with one eye and then with the other so as to make sure that all was safe, and several times he paused with one foot poised high before deciding to take the next step. my friend was greatly amused to see all the trouble that the fowl was taking to get up to the empty pot, and, for the fun of giving the conceited young cockerel a fright, threw a pebble at him. he was so nervous that when the pebble dropped near him, he gave one great bound and tore off flapping and screaming down the yard as if he thought the old dog was after him. the old fellow himself was startled out of his sleep, and raised his head to see what the row was about; but, as nothing more happened, he lay down again, and the cockerel, finding also that it was a false alarm, turned back not a bit ashamed for another try.
the cockerel had not seen the old dog lift his head; my friend had, and when he looked again he saw that, although the underneath eye—half buried in the sand—was shut, the top eye was open and was steadily watching the cockerel as he came nearer and nearer to the pot. my friend sat dead still, expecting a rush and another fluttering scramble. at last the cockerel took the final step, craned his neck to its utmost and peered down into the empty pot. the old dog gave two gentle pats with his tail in the sand, and closing his eye went to sleep again.
jock had the same sort of trouble. the fowls tried to steal his food; and he would not stand it. his way of dealing with them was not good for their health: before i could teach him not to kill, and before the fowls would learn not to steal, he had finished half a dozen of them one after another with just one bite and a shake. he would growl very low as they came up and, without lifting his head from the plate, watch them with his little eyes turning from soft brown to shiny black; and when they came too near and tried to snatch just one mouthful—well, one jump, one shake, and it was all over.
in the end he learned to tumble them over and scare their wits out without hurting them; and they learned to give him a very wide berth.
i used always to keep some fowls with the waggons, partly to have fresh meat if we ran out of game, but mainly to have fresh eggs, which were a very great treat; and as a rule it was only when a hen turned obstinate and would not lay that we ate her. i used to have one old rooster, whose name was pezulu, and six or eight hens. the hens changed from time to time—as we ate them—but pezulu remained.
the fowl-coop was carried on top of everything else, and it was always left open so that the fowls could go in and out as they liked. in the very beginning of all, of course, the fowls were shut in and fed in the coop for a day or two to teach them where their home was; but it is surprising how quickly a fowl will learn and how it observes things. for instance, the moving of the coop from one waggon to another is not a thing one would expect the fowls to notice, all the waggons being so much alike and having no regular order at the outspans; but they did notice it, and at once. they would first get on to the waggon on which the coop had been, and look about in a puzzled lost kind of way; then walk all over the load apparently searching for it, with heads cocked this way and that, as if a great big coop was a thing that might have been mislaid somewhere; then one after another would jerk out short cackles of protest, indignation and astonishment, and generally make no end of a fuss. it was only when old pezulu led the way and perched on the coop itself and crowed and called to them that they would get up on to the other waggon.
pezulu got his name by accident—in fact, by a misunderstanding. it is a zulu word meaning ‘up’ or ‘on top,’ and when the fowls first joined the waggons and were allowed to wander about at the outspan places, the boys would drive them up when it was time to trek again by cracking their big whips and shouting “pezulu.” in a few days no driving or whip-cracking was necessary; one of the boys would shout “pezulu” three or four times, and they would all come in and one by one fly and scramble up to the coop. one day, after we had got a new lot of hens, a stranger happened to witness the performance. old pezulu was the only one who knew what was meant, and being a terribly fussy nervous old gentleman, came tearing out of the bush making a lot of noise, and scrambled hastily on to the waggon. the stranger, hearing the boys call “pezulu” and seeing him hurry up so promptly, remarked: “how well he knows his name!” so we called him pezulu after that.
whenever we got new fowls pezulu became as distracted as a nervous man with a large family trying to find seats in an excursion train. as soon as he saw the oxen being brought up, and before any one had called for the fowls, he would begin fussing and fuming—trying all sorts of dodges to get the hens up to the waggons. he would crow and cluck-cluck or kip-kip; he would go a few yards towards the waggons and scratch in the ground, pretending to have found something good, and invite them to come and share it; he would get on the disselboom and crow and flap his wings loudly; and finally he would mount on top of the coop and make all sorts of signals to the hens, who took not the least notice of him. as the inspanning went on he would get more and more excited; down he would come again—not flying off, but hopping from ledge to ledge to show them the easy way; and once more on the ground he would scrape and pick and cluck to attract them, and the whole game would be played over again and again. so even with new fowls we had very little trouble, as old pezulu did most of the teaching.
but sometimes pezulu himself was caught napping—to the high delight of the boys. he was so nervous and so fussy that they thought it great fun to play tricks on him and pretend to go off and leave him behind. it was not easy to do this because, as i say, he did not wait to be called, but got ready the minute he saw the oxen coming up. he was like those fussy people who drive every one else crazy and waste a lot of time by always being half an hour early, and then annoy you by boasting that they have never missed a train in their lives.
but there was one way in which pezulu used to get caught. just as he knew that inspanning meant starting, so, too, he knew that outspanning meant stopping; and whenever the waggons stopped—even for a few minutes—out would pop his head, just like the fussy red-faced father of the big family looking out to see if it was their station or an accident on the line. right and left he would look, giving excited inquisitive clucks from time to time, and if they did not start in another minute or two, he would get right out and walk anxiously to the edge of the load and have another good look around—as the nervous old gentleman gets half out, and then right out, to look for the guard, but will not let go the handle of the door for fear of being left. unless he saw the boys outspanning he would not get off, and if one of the hens ventured out he would rush back at her in a great state and try to bustle her back into the coop. but often it happens while trekking that something goes wrong with the gear—a yokeskey or a nek-strop breaks, or an ox will not pull kindly or pulls too hard where he is, and you want to change his place; and in that way it comes about that sometimes you have to outspan one or two or even more oxen in the middle of a trek.
that is how pezulu used to get caught: the minute he saw outspanning begin, he would nip off with all the hens following him and wander about looking for food, chasing locusts or grasshoppers, and making darts at beetles and all sorts of dainties—very much interested in his job and wandering further from the waggons at every step. the boys would watch him, and as soon as they were fixed up again, would start off without a word of warning to pezulu. then there was a scene. at the first sound of the waggon-wheels moving he would look up from where he was or walk briskly into the open or get on to an ant-heap to see what was up, and when to his horror he saw the waggon actually going without him, he simply screamed open-mouthed and tore along with wings outstretched—the old gentleman shouting “stop the train, stop the train,” with his family straggling along behind him. it never took him long to catch up and scramble on, but even then he was not a bit less excited: he was perfectly hysterical, and his big red comb seemed to get quite purple as if he might be going to have apoplexy, and he twitched and jerked about so that it flapped first over one eye and then over the other. this was the boys’ practical joke which they played on him whenever they could.
that was old pezulu—pezulu the first. he was thick in the body, all chest and tail, short in the legs, and had enormous spurs; and his big comb made him; look so red in the face that one could not help thinking he was too fond of his dinner. in some old christmas number we came across a coloured caricature of a militia colonel in full uniform, and for quite a long time it remained tacked on to the coop with “pezulu” written on it.
pezulu the great—who was pezulu the second—was not like that: he was a game cock, all muscle and no frills, with a very resolute manner and a real love of his profession; he was a bit like jock in some things; and that is why i fancy perhaps jock and he were friends in a kind of way. but jock could not get on with the others: they were constantly changing; new ones who had to be taught manners were always coming; so he just lumped them together, and hated fowls. he taught them manners, but they taught him something too—at any rate, one of them did; and one of the biggest surprises and best lessons jock ever had was given him by a hen while he was still a growing-up puppy.
he was beginning to fancy that he knew a good deal, and like most young dogs was very inquisitive and wanted to know everything and at once. at that time he was very keen on hunting mice, rats and bush squirrels, and had even fought and killed a meerkat after the plucky little rikkitikki had bitten him rather badly through the lip; and he was still much inclined to poke his nose in or rush on to things instead of sniffing round about first.
however, he learned to be careful, and an old hen helped to teach him. the hens usually laid their eggs in the coop because it was their home, but sometimes they would make nests in the bush at the outspan places. one of the hens had done this, and the bush she had chosen was very low and dense. no one saw the hen make the nest and no one saw her sitting on it, for the sunshine was so bright everywhere else, and the shade of the bush so dark that it was impossible to see anything there; but while we were at breakfast jock, who was bustling about everywhere as a puppy will, must have scented the hen or have seen this brown thing in the dark shady hole.
the hen was sitting with her head sunk right down into her chest, so that he could not see any head, eyes or beak—just a sort of brown lump. suddenly we saw jock stand stock-still, cock up one ear, put his head down and his nose out, hump up his shoulders a bit and begin to walk very slowly forward in a crouching attitude. he lifted his feet so slowly and so softly that you could count five between each step. we were all greatly amused and thought he was pointing a mouse or a locust, and we watched him.
he crept up like a boy showing off until he was only six inches from the object, giving occasional cautious glances back at us to attract attention. just as he got to the hole the hen let out a vicious peck on the top of his nose and at the same time flapped over his head, screaming and cackling for dear life. it was all so sudden and so surprising that she was gone before he could think of making a grab at her; and when he heard our shouts of laughter he looked as foolish as if he understood all about it.
