I had about made up my mind to walk away when four of his boys approached the tent from behind, and one of them cried "Hodi!" The boy to whom he had given directions across my shoulder was not among them.
They threw the buck down near my feet, and he came out from the gloomy interior and stared at it.

He asked them questions rapidly in the native tongue, and they answered, pointing at me.
"They say you shot it," he told me, stroking his great beard alternately with either hand.
"Then they lie!" I answered.
"Let me see that rifle!" he said, reaching out an enormous freckled fist to take it.
I saw through his game at last.

It would have been the easiest thing in the world to extract a cartridge from the clip in the magazine and claim afterward that I had fired it away.

Evidently he proposed to get me in his power, though for just what reason he was so determined to make use of me rather than any one else was not so clear.
"So I shot the buck, did I ?" I asked.
"Those four natives say they saw you shoot it." "Then it's mine ?" He nodded.
"It's heavy," I said, "but I expect I can carry it." I took the buck by the hind legs and swung myself under it.

It weighed more than a hundred pounds, but the African climate had not had time enough to sap my strength or destroy sheer pleasure in muscular effort.
"What's mine's my own!" I laughed.