As our stores were principally at Kuboos, from whence we occasionally got a mule-load over the extremely difficult mountain path, we travelled on the scantiest of rations, each man carrying a little tea, sugar, coffee, and meal on his saddle, and depending on our guns for anything more substantial. The difficult ravine which we had previously traversed by moonlight was safely negotiated, though daylight showed us that it was every whit as formidable as we had imagined. We passed the night at the tiny pool of water below the big copper nugget, and as we had seen no sign of game, our supper was not a heavy one. Next day we were off well before sun-up, anxious to shoot something for the pot, but it was not till late in the afternoon that Poulley spotted a _klomp_ of springbok on the sandy, kopje-studded plains over which we were now travelling. The wavering mirage made shooting difficult, but at length he bagged one, and we slung it over the saddle and hurried on, for we were belated, and wished to reach the Orange before dark. We cut into a sand-river that looked like bringing us out by the Tatas Berg, but it turned out to be more than usually tortuous, and it was late at night when we reached the welcome river. Too tired to eat, we did not take the precaution to clean the buck, with the result that, getting up ravenous the next morning, and longing for a good buck steak, we found our hard-earned quarry green, putrid, and quite uneatable. Even Sam, the “boy” with us, could not face it, and as we were extremely sharp-set, and longing for something other than heavy _roster-kook_, I suggested dynamiting a pool for fish. So we stripped, and I threw a charge with a short fuse and detonator into a deep-looking pool near by. As usual, however, there was little to show for such a splash--nothing, in fact, but half a dozen springers, the size of herrings. I was busily swimming about, catching these and throwing them to Poulley on the bank. Suddenly he crouched down. “Hush!” he said. “Bob your head under, or pretend to be a rock or something--there’s a wild goose!” And he hopped off to the trees where the guns lay, doing good time, considering he was Adam-naked and the ground was covered in thorns. Meanwhile I tried to look as much like a rock as possible, for wild geese are the most wary of birds, and I floated round with little but my nose above the water, mentally cooking that goose, and eating him without sage and onions. Then Poulley came creeping back with the gun, and started out on a spit of rock towards the rapids. Then I heard the goose “get up and get,” and saw it going down beyond a small island the wrong side of the rapids--within easy range, if we could only get to the island.