This was more easily intended than carried out; for the reeds closed in so as to hamper his movements, and in a short time the path ran into other tracks, which doubled here and there without any decided direction, and led him into little dens.  In one of these there was the bleached skull of a buffalo, and he sat down on this to consider.

He got the direction of the sun from the shadows, made a rough guess at the points of the compass, and then started off again, picking out a path that seemed wider than the others, and which led in the right way.  After steady tramping, he found himself back at the very spot where he had killed the antelope.  It was a nasty shock, but, in no way dismayed, he tried to pick up his old spoor, and after a patient search he hit it off, and went on with a little laugh.  He hesitated when he entered another little open space, but finally kept on in the same direction, and finding the way easier, stepped out confidently, although the weight of the buck was beginning to tell, combined with the closeness of the air in these long aisles.  At last the reeds thinned, and he stepped out into the open.  He slipped the legs of the buck over his head to stretch himself, and then a little cry of disgust broke from his lips, for the place he had come to was not the outskirts of the reeds at all, but merely an open space, larger than any he had met before, with a little grass mound in the centre.  Mounting this, he could see a run of trees in the distance, and in between a sea of green leaves, giving back myriad points of light under the rays of the sun.  Queer soft noises came out of the white rows of reeds all around, and from the vast expanse a continual murmur that was something like the moaning of the wind in the pines.

He fired his gun off and listened.  A faint far-off answer he thought he heard; but when he fired again he could detect no sound but the whispering murmur.  He cut a couple of stout reeds, fitted one into the other, tied his handkerchief to the top, and planted the pole on the mound.  Then he placed the buck at the foot of the pole, covered it with an armful of reeds, took a long look around, and started off once more.  He was resolved to keep straight on, path or no path, but after a tussle with the serried ranks of reeds, with their razor-like leaves, he soon gave up that idea as hopeless, and took again to the paths—­going very slowly, and taking his direction at intervals.  But, try as he would, there were the kinks and twists in the paths which turned him out of his course.  The endless game-tracks formed a worse snare than any he had been in of human contrivance; and at places, moreover, the ground was boggy, catching hold of his feet, and exhausting him by the heavy going.  Several times animals broke cover and crashed away unseen.  At one spot in the ooze he saw the form of a huge crocodile, and at another place the menacing head of a python was reared above the tops of the reeds, with his forked tongue