Page:Athletics and Manly Sport (1890).djvu/509

444 little retirement from society. The swamp is a fine place for a retreat.

"What is the other thing you are in doubt about?" I asked Moseley.

"The wild cattle. We have seen only that red and white cow and calf, though they say they are numerous. I can't believe that that tame-looking cow was wild."

"But what business would a tame cow have in the depths of the swamp, and how could she get home if she had a home to go to?"

He admitted that it was hard to find a domestic reason for the cow being in the swamp, but still he doubted. We were passing at the time through a narrow and dark waterway, where the sheets of deep water under the trees lay like black glass. We came to a dry bank in the morass, and, standing there, quietly and proudly looking at us as we approached, was a red bull about three years old. We stopped paddling and returned the stare. He stood beside our only passage, a narrow one. Abeham was behind, and he shouted, "Look out, dere; dat wild bull dang'ous!"

We shouted at him, but he paid no heed. He was a superb creature, dark red all over, round-headed and very small. We broke branches and waved them and shouted, at a distance from him