were all requested to arrange themselves under the sheer cliff of the kloof, where they could not be seen by the birds coming over them from behind, and there to keep silence.  Then Pereira and I—­I attended by my loader, but he alone, as he said a man at his elbow would bother him—­and with us Retief, the referee, took our stations about a hundred and fifty yards from this face of cliff.  Here we screened ourselves as well as we could from the keen sight of the birds behind some tall bushes which grew at this spot.

I seated myself on a camp-stool, which I had brought with me, for my leg was still too weak to allow me to stand long, and waited.  Presently Pereira said through Retief that he had a favour to ask, namely, that I would allow him to take the first six shots, as the strain of waiting made him nervous.  I answered, “Certainly,” although I knew well that the object of the request was that he believed that the outpost geese—­“spy-geese” we called them—­which would be the first to arrive, would probably come over low down and slow, whereas those that followed, scenting danger, might fly high and fast.  This, in fact, proved to be the case, for there is no bird more clever than the misnamed goose.

When we had waited about a quarter of an hour Hans said: 

“Hist!  Goose comes.”

As he spoke, though as yet I could not see the bird, I heard its cry of “Honk, honk” and the swish of its strong wings.

Then it appeared, an old spur-winged gander, probably the king of the flock, flying so low that it only cleared the cliff edge by about twenty feet, and passed over not more than thirty yards up, an easy shot.  Pereira fired, and down it came rather slowly, falling a hundred yards or so behind him, while Retief said: 

“One for our side.”

Pereira loaded again, and just as he had capped his rifle three more geese, also flying low, came over, preceded by a number of ducks, passing straight above us, as they must do owing to the shape of the gap between the land waves of the veld above through which they flighted.  Pereira shot, and to my surprise, the second, not the first, bird fell, also a good way behind him.

“Did you shoot at that goose, or the other, nephew?” asked Retief.

“At that one for sure,” he answered with a laugh.

“He lies,” muttered the Hottentot; “he shot at the first and killed the second.”

“Be silent,” I answered.  “Who would lie about such a thing?”

Again Pereira loaded.  By the time that he was ready more geese were approaching, this time in a triangle of seven birds, their leader being at the point of the triangle, which was flying higher than those that had gone before.  He fired, and down came not one bird, but two, namely, the captain and the goose to the right of and a little behind it.

“Ah! uncle,” exclaimed Pereira, “did you see those birds cross each other as I pulled?  That was a lucky one for me, but I won’t count the second if the Heer Allan objects.”