"Leaving them to work a way through their domestic differences, I levied
a supply of vegetable food from the kraal in consideration of services
rendered, and left them with my blessing. I do not know how they settled
matters, because I have not seen them since.
"Then I started on the spoor of the three bulls. For a couple of miles
or so below the kraal--as far, indeed, as the belt of swamp that borders
the river--the ground is at this spot rather stony, and clothed with
scattered bushes. Rain had fallen towards the daybreak, and this fact,
together with the nature of the soil, made spooring a very difficult
business. The wounded bull had indeed bled freely, but the rain had
washed the blood off the leaves and grass, and the ground being so
rough and hard did not take the footmarks so clearly as was convenient.
However, we got along, though slowly, partly by the spoor, and partly
by carefully lifting leaves and blades of grass, and finding blood
underneath them, for the blood gushing from a wounded animal often falls
upon their inner surfaces, and then, of course, unless the rain is very
heavy, it is not washed away. It took us something over an hour and a
half to reach the edge of the marsh, but once there our task became
much easier, for the soft soil showed plentiful evidences of the great
brutes' passage. Threading our way through the swampy land, we came
at last to a ford of the river, and here we could see where the poor
wounded animal had lain down in the mud and water in the hope of easing
himself of his pain, and could see also how his two faithful companions
had assisted him to rise again.
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