It has, indeed, been supposed that the original spud was formed from a
large wrought-iron nail, such as the ancients used, sharpened on a stone
at one end, and beaten out flat at the other. This instrument has a
handle in the middle, half-way between the chisel end and the point. The
handle is of horn or bone (the spud being put through the hollow of the
bone), smoothed to fit the hand. With the chisel end he cuts up his game
and his food; the edge, being sloping, is drawn across the meat and
divides it. With this end, too, he fashions his club and his traps, and
digs up the roots he uses. The other end he runs into his meat as a
fork, or thrusts it into the neck of his game to kill it and let out the
blood, or with it stabs a sleeping enemy.

The stab delivered by the Bushman can always be distinguished, because
the wound is invariably square, and thus a clue only too certain has
often been afforded to the assassin of many an unfortunate hunter.
Whatever the Bushman in this case had hurled his club at, the club had
gone into the willow bush, snapping the light branch and leaving its
mark upon the bark of the larger. A moment's reflection convinced Felix
that the Bushman had been in chase of a pheasant. Only a few moments
previously a pheasant had flown before them down the track, and where
there was one pheasant there were generally several more in the
immediate neighbourhood.

The Bushmen were known to be peculiarly fond of the pheasant, pursuing
them all the year round without reference to the breeding season, and so
continuously, that it was believed they caused these birds to be much
less numerous, notwithstanding the vast extent of the forests, than they
would otherwise have been. From the fresh appearance of the snapped
bough, the Bushman must have passed but a few hours previously, probably
at the dawn, and was very likely concealed at that moment near at hand