was just up, and the air was only tepid as yet. From patches of
high grass whirred and rocketed grouse of two sorts. They were so much
like our own ruffed grouse and prairie chicken that I could with no
effort imagine myself once more a boy in the coverts of the Middle West.
Only before us we could see the stripes of trotting zebra disappearing;
and catch the glint of light on the bayonets of the oryx. Two giraffes
galumphed away to the right. Little grass antelope darted from clump
to clump of grass. Once we saw gerenuk-oh, far away in an impossible
distance. Of course we tried to stalk them; and as usual we failed. The
gerenuk we had come to look upon as our Lesser Hoodoo.

The beast is a gazelle about as big as a black-tailed deer. His
peculiarity is his excessively long neck, a good deal on the giraffe
order. With it he crops browse above high tide mark of other animals,
especially when as often happens he balances cleverly on his hind legs.
By means of it also he can, with his body completely concealed, look
over the top of ordinary cover and see you long before you have made
out his inconspicuous little head. Then he departs. He seems to have
a lamentable lack of healthy curiosity about you. In that respect he
should take lessons from the kongoni. After that you can follow him as
far as you please; you will get only glimpses at three or four hundred
yards.

We remounted sadly and rode on. The surface of the ground was rather
soft, scattered with round rocks the size of a man's head, and full of
pig holes.

"Cheerful country to ride over at speed," remarked Billy. Later in the
day we had occasion to remember that statement.

The plains led us ever on. First would be a band of scattered brush
growing singly and in small clumps: then a little open prairie; then
a narrow, long grass swale; then perhaps a low, long hill with small
single trees and rough, volcanic footing. Ten thousand things kept us
interested. Game was everywhere, feeding singly, in groups, in herds,
game of all sizes and descriptions. The rounded ears of jackals pointed
at us from the grass. Hundreds of birds balanced or fluttered about us,
birds of all sizes from the big ground hornbill to the littlest hummers
and sun birds. Overhead, across the wonderful variegated sky of Africa
the broad-winged carrion hunters and birds of prey wheeled. In all our
stay on the Isiola we had not seen a single rhino track, so we rode
quite care free and happy.