picked up an insect--a strange creature which had adapted
itself to its surroundings by pretending to be a dried twig.

"Tell me what you saw."

"I saw the twin bulls when they were calves, and I saw them when
they led the herd, and when they lost the leadership. I watched
them. Ow aye, I knew their ways. Sometime, when I was yet a boy, I
could understand what they said."

"What they said, chief?"

"See, the creatures are like men in their ways, and men are like
animals--each man like to one kind of animal. Haw! So I judged what
the buffalo would say if he could talk like men."

"And what was the talk? Tell it me; for I also have given speech to
animals when I have watched alone."

"I will tell you what I thought when I was young, and watched the
things of the forest. The wisest among the people I have met is a
woman; and among the things of the forest, the wisest were even a
buffalo cow who never had calf, and the mother of the yellow pack,
who had white eyes in her long head. Haw!

"Now, the pack hunted on the same veld where a troop of buffalo
grazed, but the bull who led the troop was wise. He took counsel
with the old cow that was calf-less, and the pack could never find
the fat heifers or the younger calves unguarded. In the troop were
two young bulls--brothers; and these I had watched grow--watched
from my hiding. They were strong and fierce, and they eyed the old
bull full. Scarcely would they turn from his path. Wow! One morning
the old bull stood in the game-path, considering in his mind how it
came to happen that the earth had been fresh turned. While he stood,
the young bulls pressing behind suddenly put their horns to his
flanks and urged him forward. Mawoh! The old bull stepped on to the
newly turned earth, and went down into a pit that the hunters had
dug. He called to the troop to run from the danger, and they crashed
through the wood to the open glade.

"Haw! A young dog of the pack heard the bellow from the earth, and
creeping near, he looked down upon the great bull. Then, with his
nose to the ground, he ran upon the trail of the troop till he saw
them in the opening. The young bulls moved among the cows. They
pushed the old cow aside, and later went through the tall grass into
a shallow vlei, where they wallowed in the mud. Then the young dog
ran back to the pack. This is what he said, as I understood--

"'Behold, O mother,' he said, 'the great bull, even the leader, is
fallen in the trap