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 made by man in the path.’

“Who leads the troop now—­the old cow or the two brothers?”

‘The young bulls, O mother, and they lie in the mud.’

“Then the she-dog called the pack together.  I heard the call, and knew there would be hunting.  She called them and made a plan.  I saw afterwards the plan she made.  The young dogs she sent round to the far side of the vlei, and she came with the biggest of the pack to the side nearest the forest.  From the edge of the wood she looked out on the open.  The old cow stood alone, with her head turning now this way, then that way.  The others grazed with their calves.  The heifers stood foot-deep in the water near the bulls.

“The old dog turned to the pack.  ’This comes of the folly of the young,’ she said; and her white eyes ran from dog to dog.  ’Those two lie like pigs.  We will eat buffalo to-night.  Scatter and wait.’

“Three dogs went to the right of her and three to the left.  They stretched themselves in the grass.  The old cow blew through her nostrils.  She struck the ground, and the cows with the young calves ran to her.  They gathered in a bunch, heads out.  From beyond came the hunting-cry of the young dogs.  The heifers moved, but the bulls kept still.’  It is but a dog yapping after a hare,’ they said.  ‘Stand you still.’

“But the hunting-cry drew nearer.  The cows lowered their heads, bellowing, and the heifers ran.  Wow!  The young dogs cut one out, and raced her right to where the great mother of the pack crouched.  As the heifer came by, the white jaws snapped at her belly, and bit deep, so that blood flowed, and on the scent of the blood the pack went into the forest.  They ate buffalo that night.