service. Scallywattamus is a small white mule who is firmly convinced
that each and every bush in Africa conceals a mule-eating rhinoceros,
and who does not intend to be one of the number so eaten. But we had
noticed that at times zebra would be so struck with the strange sight of
Scallywattamus carrying a man, that they would let us get quite close.
C. was to ride Scallywattamus while I trudged along under his lee ready
to shoot.

We set out through the heat shimmer, gradually rising as the plain
slanted. Imperceptibly the camp and the trees marking the river's course
fell below us and into the heat haze. In the distance, close to the
stream, we made out a blurred, brown-red solid mass which we knew for
Masai cattle. Various little Thompson's gazelles skipped away to the
left waggling their tails vigorously and continuously as Nature long
since commanded "Tommies" to do. The heat haze steadied around the dim
white line, so we could make out the individual animals. There were
plenty of them, dozing in the sun. A single tiny treelet broke the plain
just at the skyline of the rise. C. and I talked low-voiced as we went
along. We agreed that the tree was an excellent landmark to come to,
that the little rise afforded proper cover, and that in the morning the
wind would in all likelihood blow toward the river. There were perhaps
twenty zebra near enough to the chosen spot. Any of them would do.

But the zebra did not give a hoot for Scallywattamus. At five hundred
yards three or four of them awoke with a start, stared at us a minute,
and moved slowly away. They told all the zebra they happened upon that
the three idiots approaching were at once uninteresting and dangerous.
At four hundred and fifty yards a half dozen more made off at a trot. At
three hundred and fifty yards the rest plunged away at a canter-all
but one. He remained to stare, but his tail was up, and we knew he
only stayed because he knew he could easily catch up in the next twenty
seconds.

The chance was very slim of delivering a knockout at that distance, but
we badly needed meat, anyway, after our march through the Thirst, so I
tried him. We heard the well-known plunk of the bullet, but down went
his head, up went his heels, and away went he. We watched him in vast
disgust. He cavorted out into a bare open space without cover of any
sort, and then flopped over. I thought I caught a fleeting grin of
delight on Mavrouki's face; but he knew enough instant