Across on the other side, were broken valleys that sloped steeply down into the canyon. There were heavy growths of trees in the valleys and grassy slopes on the ridges between, and above there was the thick bamboo forest of the mountain. The canyon ran down to the Rift Valley, seeming to narrow at the far end where it cut through the wall of the rift. Beyond, above the grassy ridges and slopes, were heavily forested hills. It looked a hell of a country to hunt.
‘If you see one across there you have to go straight down to the bottom of the canyon. Then up one of those timber patches and across those damned gullies. You can’t keep him in sight and you’ll kill yourself climbing. It’s too steep. Those are the kind of innocent-looking gullies we got into that night coming home.’
‘It looks very bad,’ Pop agreed.
‘I’ve hunted a country just like this for deer. The south slope of Timber Creek in Wyoming. The slopes are all too steep. It’s hell. It’s too broken. We’ll take some punishment to-morrow.’
P.O.M. said nothing. Pop had brought us here and Pop would bring us out. All she had to do was see her boots did not hurt her feet. They hurt just a little now, and that was her only worry.
I went on to dilate on the difficulties the country showed and we went home to camp in the dark all very gloomy and full of prejudice against Droopy. The fire flamed brightly in the wind and we sat and watched the moon rise and listened to the hyenas. After we had a few drinks we did not feel so badly about the country.
‘Droopy swears it’s good,’ Pop said. ‘This isn’t where he wanted to go though, he says. It was another place farther on. But he swears this is good.’
‘I love Droopy,’ P.O.M. said. ‘I have perfect confidence in Droopy.’
Droopy came up to the fire with two spear-carrying natives.
‘What does he hear?’ I asked.
There was some talk by the natives, then Pop said: ‘One of these sportsmen claims he was chased by a huge rhino to-day. Of course nearly any rhino would look huge when he was chasing him.’
‘Ask him how long the horn was.’
The native showed that the horn was as long as his arm. Droopy grinned.
‘Tell him to go,’ said Pop.
‘Where did all this happen?’
‘Oh, over there somewhere,’ Pop said. ‘You know. Over there. Way over there. Where these things always happen.’
‘That’s marvellous. Just where we want to go.’
‘The good aspect is that Droopy’s not at all depressed,’ Pop said. ‘He seems very confident. After all, it’s his show.’
‘Yes, but we have to do the climbing.’
‘Cheer him up, will you?’ Pop said to P.O.M. ‘He’s getting me very depressed.’
‘Should we talk about how well he shoots?’
‘Too early in the evening. I’m not gloomy. I’ve just seen that kind of country before. It will be good for us all right. Take some of your belly off, Governor.’
The next day I found that I was all wrong about that country.
We had breakfast before daylight and were started before sunrise, climbing the hill beyond the village in single file. Ahead there was the local guide with a spear, then Droopy with my heavy gun and a water bottle, then me with the Springfield, Pop with the Mannlicher, P.O.M. pleased, as always to carry nothing, M’Cola with Pop’s heavy gun and another water bottle, and finally two local citizens with spears, water bags, and a chop box with lunch. We planned to lay up in the heat of the middle of the day and not get back until dark.
It was fine climbing in the cool fresh morning and very different from toiling up this same trail last evening in the sunset with all the rocks and dirt giving back the heat of the day. The trail was used regularly by cattle and the dust was powdered dry and, now, lightly moistened from the dew. There were many hyena tracks and, as the trail came on to a ridge of grey rock so that you could look down on both sides into a steep ravine, and then went on along the edge of the canyon, we saw a fresh rhino track in one of the dusty patches below the rocks.
‘He’s just gone on ahead,’ Pop said. ‘They must wander all over here at night.’
Below, at the bottom of the canyon, we could see the tops of high trees and in an opening see the flash of water. Across were the steep hillside and the gullies we had studied last night. Droopy and the local guide, the one who had been chased by the rhino, were whispering together. Then they started down a steep path that went in long slants down the side of the canyon.
We stopped. I had not seen P.O.M. was limping, and in sudden whispered family bitterness there was a highly-righteous-on-both-sides clash, historically on unwearable shoes and boots in the past, and imperatively on these, which hurt.
The hurt was lessened by cutting off the toes of the heavy short wool socks worn over ordinary socks, and then, by removing the socks entirely, the boots made possible. Going down-hill steeply made these Spanish shooting boots too short in the toe and there was an old argument, about this length of boot and whether the bootmaker, whose part I had taken, unwittingly first, only as interpreter, and finally embraced his theory patriotically as a whole and, I believed, by logic, had overcome it by adding on to the heel. But they hurt now, a stronger logic, and the situation was unhelped by the statement that men’s new boots always hurt for weeks before they became comfortable.
Now, heavy socks removed, stepping tentatively, trying the pressure of the leather against the toes, the argument past, she wanting not to suffer, but to keep up and please Mr. J. P., me ashamed at having been a four-letter man about boots, at being righteous against pain, at being righteous at all, at ever being righteous, stopping to whisper about it, both of us grinning at what was whispered, it all right now, the boots too, without the heavy socks, much better, me hating all righteous bastards now, one absent American friend especially, having just removed myself from that category, certainly never to be righteous again, watching Droopy ahead, we went down the long slant of the trail toward the bottom of the canyon where the trees were heavy and tall and the floor of the canyon, that from above had been a narrow gash, opened to a forest-banked stream.
We stood now in the shade of trees with great smooth trunks, circled at their base with the line of roots that showed in rounded ridges up the trunks like arteries, the trunks the yellow green of a French forest on a day in winter after rain. But these trees had a great spread of branches and were in leaf and below them, in the stream bed in the sun, reeds like papyrus grass grew thick as wheat and twelve feet tall. There was a game trail through the grass along the stream and Droopy was bent down looking at it. M’Cola went over and looked and they both followed it a little way, stooped close over it, then came back to us.
‘Nyati,’ M’Cola whispered. ‘Buffalo.’ Droopy whispered to Pop and then Pop said, softly in his throaty, whisky whisper, ‘They’re buff gone down the river. Droop says there are some big bulls. They haven’t come back.’
‘Let’s follow them,’ I said. ‘I’d rather get another buff than rhino.’
‘It’s as good a chance as any for rhino, too,’ Pop said.
‘By God, isn’t it a great looking country?’ I said.
‘Splendid,’ Pop said. ‘Who would have imagined it?’
‘The trees are like Andre’s pictures,’ P.O.M. said. ‘It’s simply beautiful. Look at that green. It’s Masson. Why can’t a good painter see this country?’
‘How are your boots?’
‘Fine.’
As we trailed the buffalo we went very slowly and quietly. There was no wind and we knew that when the breeze came up it would be from the east and blow up the canyon toward us. We followed the game trail down the river-bed and as we went the grass was much higher. Twice we had to get down to crawl and the reeds were so thick you could not see two feet into them. Droop found a fresh rhino track, too, in the mud. I began to think about what would happen if a rhino came barging along this tunnel and who would do what.
It was exciting but I did not like it. It was too much like being in a trap and there was P.O.M. to think about. Then as the stream made a bend and we came out of the high grass to the bank I smelled game very distinctly. I do not smoke, and hunting at home I have several times smelled elk in the rutting season before I have seen them, and I can smell clearly where an old bull has lain in the forest. The bull elk has a strong musky smell. It is a strong but pleasant odour and I know it well, but this smell I did not know.
‘I can smell them,’ I whispered to Pop. He believed me.
‘What is it?’
‘I don’t know but it’s plenty strong. Can’t you?’
‘No.’
‘Ask Droop.’
Droopy nodded and grinned.
‘They take snuff,’ Pop said. ‘I don’t know whether they can scent or not.’
We went on into another bed of reeds that were high over our heads, putting each foot down silently before lifting the
