Chapter Nine.

Chapter Nine.“Seen any more Lions?”Feeling half stunned, Mark rolled over and over, holding on to his piece the while, and struggled to his feet from amongst the bushes in which he had involuntarily sought refuge. His movements took him through a low, clinging cloud of the smoke of gunpowder, and he heard the rustling of trampled bushes as what he assumed to be his assailant dashed away. And now he grasped the fact that his shot had thoroughly roused the whole camp. The ponies were plunging and dragging at their raw hide lariats, and the oxen were upon their feet, alarmed in the darkness and about to break away; but Buck Denham, the English driver, and the Hottentot were yelling at them, and the black forelopers were adding their shrill cry as they aided in trying to pacify the beasts.In the midst of the noise and confusion Mark heard his name loudly uttered, followed by the words, “Where are you, my lad? Speak up!”“Here—here,” he panted.“Oh, that’s right.”“Not hurt, are you?” cried the doctor, as he grasped him by one arm, and he awoke to the fact that his breathless father had seized him by the other.“Speak, my boy,” he cried. “Why don’t you speak? Where are you hurt?”“I don’t quite know, father? Not much; but it sprang right at me and knocked me back amongst the bushes as it tore away.”“What tore away?” cried the doctor. “What did you fire at?”“I am not quite sure,” replied the boy excitedly, “but I think it was a lion. I saw it creeping up towards the ponies, and as it reared up to spring upon them I fired.”“Yes,” said his father sharply, “and then?”“I think I must have wounded it, for I heard it dashing away amongst the bushes.”“Well done, boy,” cried his father, patting him on the shoulder. “But you are sure you are not hurt much?”“Oh, yes, I am not hurt much, father,” said the boy quietly. “The beast struck me on the shoulder and knocked me right backwards.”“Then he will be clawed, doctor. Let’s get him into the waggon, and have a light.”“Yes, by all means. Who’s there?” cried the doctor, in the darkness and confusion.“Ay, ay, sir! Me, sir. Off for a lantern,” cried the little sailor.“Here we are sir,” cried Bob Bacon. “Me, sir, and Peter Dance.”“That’s right, my lads. Take hold of Mr Mark and carry him into the waggon.”“Oh, Mark,” cried another voice, “don’t say you are hurt!”“Well, but I am, old chap,” said Mark coolly. “No, I say, don’t do that. Don’t be frightened, father, I can walk.”“Are you sure, boy?” said the doctor, who had handed the rifle with which he had come out armed to the keeper; and as he spoke he passed his hands over Mark’s shoulders, fully expecting to feel the moisture of blood oozing through his clothes.“Oh!” shouted the boy, and Sir James winced, uttering a low hissing sound the while.“It’s got him there,” said the doctor, between his teeth.“Yes, it pricks,” said the boy. “It was only when you touched it.”At that moment a light appeared from the direction of the first waggon, and the big bullock driver joined the party, ready to open his lantern and cast its rays upon the excited little throng, one of the first faces seen being that of the black guide, who, spear in hand, seemed to become one of the most animated, as he stood with his eyes flashing and his white teeth bared.“Ahoy! Light’s here, sir!” shouted the sailor.“Bring it here,” cried the doctor, and the rays of a second lantern came dancing through the darkness to help light up the scene.“Now, my boy,” said the doctor, “do you feel faint?”“No,” said Mark sturdily.“I only want to see how much you are hurt.”“It’s getting better now,” said the boy cheerfully. “It only aches.”“But I must see where—” began the doctor, only to be checked by a shout from Mark.“I say, don’t! You are hurting me again. It’s a big thorn, and you pressed it farther in.”“Is it the beast’s claw?” whispered Sir James.“It can’t be,” replied the doctor. “It’s right on the back of his shoulder where I placed my hand—yes, here it is.”“Oh!” ejaculated Mark again, for the doctor thrust his hand inside the door of one of the lanterns, to display a great thorn about two inches long.“Ah, there’s lots more here, sir,” cried Bob Bacon. “Mr Mark must have been knocked right into these bushes.”“Why, Mark,” continued the doctor, “hold up your hands. They are all covered with blood. Scratches. I don’t find anything else the matter with you.”“No,” said Mark; “I don’t think there is. I say, don’t make such a fuss about it. It makes one look so stupid. I say, father, I’m very sorry I fired.”“Sorry!” said his father warmly. “Thank heaven, my boy, you are hurt no worse. The brute, whatever it was, must have been tremendously strong, and struck you down in its leap.”“Well, it did come at me with a good bang, father, just the same moment that I fired. Here, who’s got my gun?”“Gun,” said a voice, and the Illaka reached over to thrust it into the boy’s hand.“Oh, thank you,” said Mark. “Mustn’t lose that. Here, you catch hold, Dean. Then you think I did right in firing, father?”“Why, of course, my boy.”“Here, that will do, doctor. I think I am all right.”“Well, really, my boy, I am beginning to think so too. But I will keep watch the rest of the night with one of the men. You had better go and lie down now.”“Oh, no,” said Mark. “It’s my watch, and I am going to finish it.”“And I will come and finish it with you, my boy,” said his father.“But he has finished it,” said the doctor, who had hastily pulled out his watch. “Two o’clock!”“Then it’s my turn,” said Dean quickly.“But I can’t let you undertake that task now,” said Sir James.“Let me come, sir, along with Mr Dean, sir,” cried the sailor.“No,” said Sir James. “Thank you all the same, my man, I have my rifle ready loaded. What has become of yours, Mark?”“I have got it, uncle,” cried Dean. “Give me your pouch and the cartridges, Mark. I want to load.”“But where’s your piece, Dean?” said Sir James.“Mine, uncle—mine? I came out in such a hurry that I forgot all about it.”“Bah! Well, here’s Mark’s pouch. Take it and load.”“Yes, uncle,” replied the boy hastily. “Why, Mark, I only heard one shot. Did you fire both barrels?”“Eh? I don’t know. Perhaps I did.”“Well,” said the doctor, a few minutes later, as he stood with Sir James and Dean, “I don’t think that there is any occasion to be uneasy about Mark. He can’t be injured, or he wouldn’t be so calm. The animals seem to be settling down again, and that’s a sure sign that there is nothing near to alarm them. What I wonder at is that we heard no sign from the bullocks—”“Or from the ponies,” said Sir James.”—Before Mark fired.”“Then I suppose,” said Sir James, “that we may all go and lie down till you rouse us up again, doctor.”“Which I certainly shall if there is any cause.”The alarm had not proved serious enough to interfere with the sleep of the camp, with one exception, and Mark formed that exception, for during the second watch either Dean or Mark’s father went to the waggon as quietly as possible to look after the injured lad, and oddly enough had the same report to give, that Mark was sleeping easily and well, while as soon as each visit had been paid the boy turned over, exclaiming, “Bother! Anyone would think the lion had half eaten me. I wish they would not make such a fuss.”The last time, when Dean was coming off duty, it was to find his cousin’s eyes wide open.“Oh, you are awake now,” he cried. “How are you?”“Oh, all right. Seen any more lions?”“No; it’s been quite still all the rest of the night.”“Father all right?”“Yes; he will be here directly. I say, Mark, let’s look where you were hurt before he comes.”But this was not achieved, Sir James darkening the opening of the waggon tilt just as the neck of his son’s shirt was thrown open, to display a big blackening bruise upon the boy’s right shoulder, and further examination revealed a small hole where a thorn had penetrated, and some scratches upon the boy’s hands.“Are those claw marks?” said Dean excitedly.“Pooh! Nonsense!” said a voice which made all look up, to see the doctor climbing into the waggon.He too examined the injuries, and exclaimed, “You are sure you saw some animal about to attack the ponies?”“Yes, certain,” said Mark.“And you fired at it?”“Well, yes,” said Mark; “you heard me, and came.”“Exactly,” said the doctor drily; “but are you sure that the beast, whatever it was, sprang at you?”“I saw it rear up as I fired,” replied Mark, “and I felt a tremendous blow on the shoulder. Yes: here’s the bruise.”“Yes, my boy,” said the doctor quietly, “but that is just such a bruise as would have been made if you had pulled both triggers of a heavy rifle at once.”“Well,” said Mark quietly, “I have been lying awake almost ever since, and that’s just what I’ve been fancying. Do you think it was that, doctor?”“I feel sure of it, Mark; and what’s more, I have been all round the camp with the Illaka and the two keepers, and even in the moistest place we can find, there isn’t the sign of a lion’s spoor.”“Well, that’s queer,” said Mark, scratching his head. “I don’t understand it. Now I want some breakfast, and I am going to get up.”

Feeling half stunned, Mark rolled over and over, holding on to his piece the while, and struggled to his feet from amongst the bushes in which he had involuntarily sought refuge. His movements took him through a low, clinging cloud of the smoke of gunpowder, and he heard the rustling of trampled bushes as what he assumed to be his assailant dashed away. And now he grasped the fact that his shot had thoroughly roused the whole camp. The ponies were plunging and dragging at their raw hide lariats, and the oxen were upon their feet, alarmed in the darkness and about to break away; but Buck Denham, the English driver, and the Hottentot were yelling at them, and the black forelopers were adding their shrill cry as they aided in trying to pacify the beasts.

In the midst of the noise and confusion Mark heard his name loudly uttered, followed by the words, “Where are you, my lad? Speak up!”

“Here—here,” he panted.

“Oh, that’s right.”

“Not hurt, are you?” cried the doctor, as he grasped him by one arm, and he awoke to the fact that his breathless father had seized him by the other.

“Speak, my boy,” he cried. “Why don’t you speak? Where are you hurt?”

“I don’t quite know, father? Not much; but it sprang right at me and knocked me back amongst the bushes as it tore away.”

“What tore away?” cried the doctor. “What did you fire at?”

“I am not quite sure,” replied the boy excitedly, “but I think it was a lion. I saw it creeping up towards the ponies, and as it reared up to spring upon them I fired.”

“Yes,” said his father sharply, “and then?”

“I think I must have wounded it, for I heard it dashing away amongst the bushes.”

“Well done, boy,” cried his father, patting him on the shoulder. “But you are sure you are not hurt much?”

“Oh, yes, I am not hurt much, father,” said the boy quietly. “The beast struck me on the shoulder and knocked me right backwards.”

“Then he will be clawed, doctor. Let’s get him into the waggon, and have a light.”

“Yes, by all means. Who’s there?” cried the doctor, in the darkness and confusion.

“Ay, ay, sir! Me, sir. Off for a lantern,” cried the little sailor.

“Here we are sir,” cried Bob Bacon. “Me, sir, and Peter Dance.”

“That’s right, my lads. Take hold of Mr Mark and carry him into the waggon.”

“Oh, Mark,” cried another voice, “don’t say you are hurt!”

“Well, but I am, old chap,” said Mark coolly. “No, I say, don’t do that. Don’t be frightened, father, I can walk.”

“Are you sure, boy?” said the doctor, who had handed the rifle with which he had come out armed to the keeper; and as he spoke he passed his hands over Mark’s shoulders, fully expecting to feel the moisture of blood oozing through his clothes.

“Oh!” shouted the boy, and Sir James winced, uttering a low hissing sound the while.

“It’s got him there,” said the doctor, between his teeth.

“Yes, it pricks,” said the boy. “It was only when you touched it.”

At that moment a light appeared from the direction of the first waggon, and the big bullock driver joined the party, ready to open his lantern and cast its rays upon the excited little throng, one of the first faces seen being that of the black guide, who, spear in hand, seemed to become one of the most animated, as he stood with his eyes flashing and his white teeth bared.

“Ahoy! Light’s here, sir!” shouted the sailor.

“Bring it here,” cried the doctor, and the rays of a second lantern came dancing through the darkness to help light up the scene.

“Now, my boy,” said the doctor, “do you feel faint?”

“No,” said Mark sturdily.

“I only want to see how much you are hurt.”

“It’s getting better now,” said the boy cheerfully. “It only aches.”

“But I must see where—” began the doctor, only to be checked by a shout from Mark.

“I say, don’t! You are hurting me again. It’s a big thorn, and you pressed it farther in.”

“Is it the beast’s claw?” whispered Sir James.

“It can’t be,” replied the doctor. “It’s right on the back of his shoulder where I placed my hand—yes, here it is.”

“Oh!” ejaculated Mark again, for the doctor thrust his hand inside the door of one of the lanterns, to display a great thorn about two inches long.

“Ah, there’s lots more here, sir,” cried Bob Bacon. “Mr Mark must have been knocked right into these bushes.”

“Why, Mark,” continued the doctor, “hold up your hands. They are all covered with blood. Scratches. I don’t find anything else the matter with you.”

“No,” said Mark; “I don’t think there is. I say, don’t make such a fuss about it. It makes one look so stupid. I say, father, I’m very sorry I fired.”

“Sorry!” said his father warmly. “Thank heaven, my boy, you are hurt no worse. The brute, whatever it was, must have been tremendously strong, and struck you down in its leap.”

“Well, it did come at me with a good bang, father, just the same moment that I fired. Here, who’s got my gun?”

“Gun,” said a voice, and the Illaka reached over to thrust it into the boy’s hand.

“Oh, thank you,” said Mark. “Mustn’t lose that. Here, you catch hold, Dean. Then you think I did right in firing, father?”

“Why, of course, my boy.”

“Here, that will do, doctor. I think I am all right.”

“Well, really, my boy, I am beginning to think so too. But I will keep watch the rest of the night with one of the men. You had better go and lie down now.”

“Oh, no,” said Mark. “It’s my watch, and I am going to finish it.”

“And I will come and finish it with you, my boy,” said his father.

“But he has finished it,” said the doctor, who had hastily pulled out his watch. “Two o’clock!”

“Then it’s my turn,” said Dean quickly.

“But I can’t let you undertake that task now,” said Sir James.

“Let me come, sir, along with Mr Dean, sir,” cried the sailor.

“No,” said Sir James. “Thank you all the same, my man, I have my rifle ready loaded. What has become of yours, Mark?”

“I have got it, uncle,” cried Dean. “Give me your pouch and the cartridges, Mark. I want to load.”

“But where’s your piece, Dean?” said Sir James.

“Mine, uncle—mine? I came out in such a hurry that I forgot all about it.”

“Bah! Well, here’s Mark’s pouch. Take it and load.”

“Yes, uncle,” replied the boy hastily. “Why, Mark, I only heard one shot. Did you fire both barrels?”

“Eh? I don’t know. Perhaps I did.”

“Well,” said the doctor, a few minutes later, as he stood with Sir James and Dean, “I don’t think that there is any occasion to be uneasy about Mark. He can’t be injured, or he wouldn’t be so calm. The animals seem to be settling down again, and that’s a sure sign that there is nothing near to alarm them. What I wonder at is that we heard no sign from the bullocks—”

“Or from the ponies,” said Sir James.

”—Before Mark fired.”

“Then I suppose,” said Sir James, “that we may all go and lie down till you rouse us up again, doctor.”

“Which I certainly shall if there is any cause.”

The alarm had not proved serious enough to interfere with the sleep of the camp, with one exception, and Mark formed that exception, for during the second watch either Dean or Mark’s father went to the waggon as quietly as possible to look after the injured lad, and oddly enough had the same report to give, that Mark was sleeping easily and well, while as soon as each visit had been paid the boy turned over, exclaiming, “Bother! Anyone would think the lion had half eaten me. I wish they would not make such a fuss.”

The last time, when Dean was coming off duty, it was to find his cousin’s eyes wide open.

“Oh, you are awake now,” he cried. “How are you?”

“Oh, all right. Seen any more lions?”

“No; it’s been quite still all the rest of the night.”

“Father all right?”

“Yes; he will be here directly. I say, Mark, let’s look where you were hurt before he comes.”

But this was not achieved, Sir James darkening the opening of the waggon tilt just as the neck of his son’s shirt was thrown open, to display a big blackening bruise upon the boy’s right shoulder, and further examination revealed a small hole where a thorn had penetrated, and some scratches upon the boy’s hands.

“Are those claw marks?” said Dean excitedly.

“Pooh! Nonsense!” said a voice which made all look up, to see the doctor climbing into the waggon.

He too examined the injuries, and exclaimed, “You are sure you saw some animal about to attack the ponies?”

“Yes, certain,” said Mark.

“And you fired at it?”

“Well, yes,” said Mark; “you heard me, and came.”

“Exactly,” said the doctor drily; “but are you sure that the beast, whatever it was, sprang at you?”

“I saw it rear up as I fired,” replied Mark, “and I felt a tremendous blow on the shoulder. Yes: here’s the bruise.”

“Yes, my boy,” said the doctor quietly, “but that is just such a bruise as would have been made if you had pulled both triggers of a heavy rifle at once.”

“Well,” said Mark quietly, “I have been lying awake almost ever since, and that’s just what I’ve been fancying. Do you think it was that, doctor?”

“I feel sure of it, Mark; and what’s more, I have been all round the camp with the Illaka and the two keepers, and even in the moistest place we can find, there isn’t the sign of a lion’s spoor.”

“Well, that’s queer,” said Mark, scratching his head. “I don’t understand it. Now I want some breakfast, and I am going to get up.”

Chapter Ten.Sham.The doctor suggested that after such a broken night it would be as well to have an early breakfast before they started.“Yes, capital,” cried Mark. “I feel that that is just what I want to put me right.”“See to it at once, then, Dan,” said the doctor. “Tell some of the men to get you some wood, and I will talk to the bullock drivers. Oh, there are the two keepers. They will help you to get wood and fetch water. Mind they get it from a clear part of the river.”“Ay, ay, sir!” said the sailor.“How wonderfully well that poor fellow begins to look,” said the doctor.“Yes,” replied Sir James, laughing; “and he thoroughly deserves the name of the Handy Mann. He is never happy unless he is doing something—regularly valeting me and the boys. What do you say to a walk round while they are preparing breakfast?”“I am willing,” replied the doctor, “and we will take Denham and his men as we go.”They started off, and before they reached the two long spans of oxen where they had been turned to graze, Buck Denham’s voice was heard storming at somebody.“Quarrel, seemingly, captain,” said Sir James, smiling.“Or a fit of bad temper,” said the doctor, “because the big fellow’s night, was disturbed. Here, what’s the matter, Denham?” he continued, as they reached the shady pasture where the sleek bullocks were knee deep in rich grass, evidently laying in a store for emergencies when fodder might be scarce. “Don’t say that any of the cattle have strayed?”“Strayed, sir? Not they! They are all right—eight-and-forty of them. I counted them over twice to make sure, after the night’s scare. My bullocks are all right. I only wish I could trust my men as well as I can them.”“What has happened, then?”“You ask him, sir,” replied Denham, pointing to the miserable looking little Hottentot—“a pretty sort of a half-bred animal! Look at him squatting there grinning like one of them there dog-nosed baboons.”“Don’t insult the man,” said the doctor sharply. “What has he done?”“Man, sir! I don’t call him a man,” said Buck Denham. “Got nothing to do but a bit of driving now and then and to give a shout at his span, and naturally I trusted him as I was keeping my eye on the oxen to keep his on the two forelopers. I let him do it because he understands their lingo better than I do.”“Well?” said the doctor. “What then?”“What then, sir? Here are we just two days out from the town, and he’s lost one of them already.”“Lost? Nonsense!”“Well, where is he, then, sir? He has gone.”“Gone?”“Yes, sir. Sniffed at his job, I suppose, and gone off. I saw him safe enough last night; this morning he is nowhere. My foreloper he was, and now we shall have to stop here three or four days, perhaps a week, while I go back and hunt up another; and I can tell you, sir, they are precious scarce.”“That’s vexatious,” said the doctor. “Don’t be put out, Denham, I think I see how it is. The poor fellow was no doubt scared by the alarm of the lion in the night, and very likely we shall see him come creeping in before it is time to start.”“Oh, thank you, sir,” said the big fellow. “I am very glad you take it so easy. Some gen’lemen would be ready to jump down a poor man’s throat for half this.”“Indeed!” said the doctor, smiling. “Well, I don’t think you will find Sir James and me so unreasonable as to bully a good servant for an unavoidable mishap.”“Thank you, sir,” said the big fellow, smiling. “That’s done me good. I was afraid to meet you this morning, and I hope you are right, because we must have two of us to each waggon, and I don’t suppose either of your servants would like to be asked to do such nigger’s work. Hadn’t I better start back at once and get another? It would save time if I took one of them ponies.”Sir James winced as he looked at the big fellow’s proportions, and glanced uneasily at the doctor, who said, smiling, “No, we will wait to see if the man turns up, and if not our two boys shall mount the ponies and canter back to the station with a note to Captain Lawton asking him to help us to a fresh foreloper.”The man chuckled heartily.“Why do you laugh?” said the doctor. “Do you think the captain cannot be trusted?”“Oh, him, sir,” replied the man. “Cap’n Lawton’s a regular gen’leman. He’d do anything to serve a fellow-countryman. I was grinning, sir, because you thought I should be too much for the pony. Well, I am a big ’un, out and outer; but I growed so. You are quite right, sir, it would be rather hard on one of the brave little beasts, and I hope that black ’un will show up again, but I’m afraid of it. That lion last night scared him, but he’d be more scared to come and face you gen’lemen again.”Meanwhile, Mark had proposed that they should go to look at the spot where he stood to fire at his disturber. This was agreed to, and as they had to pass Dan Mann, Mark put in a word or two about hurrying on the breakfast, and told him to be sure to frizzle the bacon well.“Ay, ay, sir!” cried the little fellow, beaming upon them; and they went on, looked at the ground by daylight, and saw no trace of footprints, only finding the spot where the unpleasant thorn bush had been crushed by Mark’s fall.“Yes,” said the boy, giving a bit of a writhe and rubbing his back softly, “that’s where I went down, sure enough, and I believe I have got another thorn in there now. My word, how stiff my shoulder is! I shan’t be in a hurry to fire two barrels of a rifle together again. Yes, I stood just there when I fired, just as the beast had reared himself up—itself, I suppose I ought to say, for I don’t know whether it was a cock or a hen—but hallo, where are the ponies?”“Oh, Peter and Bob have taken them down to water, I suppose,” said Dean.“That they haven’t. There they are, over yonder.”“Well, then, Buck Denham must have driven them over there with the bullocks to have a feed before we start.”“Let’s ask Dan. Here, cooky, where are the ponies?”“Dunno, sir. They were gone when I came to see to the fire. I expect Denham has taken them along with the bullocks.”“Come on, Dean. Let’s go and see how the little fellows look.”The boys hurried amongst the trees to where Denham, the Hottentot and the foreloper were watching the grazing cattle, with the Illaka seated upon a fallen tree nursing his spear and looking on, while in the distance, each with his gun over his arm, they could see Sir James and the doctor, evidently making a circuit of the camp.“Ponies, gen’lemen?” said the big fellow. “No, I ain’t seen them; I have been so busy over my bullocks. Somebody must have taken them down to the riverside to get a good feed a-piece of that strong reedy grass that they are so fond of. You will find them down there.”“Come along,” cried Mark, and the two boys hurried off in the direction of the river, threading their way amongst the trees till they caught sight of the running water sparkling in the rays of the morning sun.“There they are,” cried Mark, “munching away and regularly enjoying themselves. Oh, you beauties! But hallo! Who’s that chap watching them?” and he drew his cousin’s attention to a tall, thin, peculiar looking fellow who was standing close to the water’s edge watching the ponies as if to keep them from going farther along the stream.The man turned his head as he heard the boys approach, and then looked back at the ponies and drove one a short distance nearer the camp.“Hullo, you!” cried Mark sharply. “What are you doing here?”The man shrugged his shoulders, and made a comprehensive sign which included the four little animals.“Yes, I see that,” said Mark, “but what do you want here?”The man shook his head sadly, and the boys saw that he was very yellow, as if dried in the sun, and had a particularly thin and peculiar face, with two long, pendant, yellowish moustachios which reached far beneath his chin. His beard was closely clipped, and they noted that he held a pair of small scissors, and as he drew back one of his twisted moustachios, he was occupied the while carefully snipping off the greyish stubble that just showed slightly upon his chin.“But how did you come here?” asked Mark.“Walked,” said the man sadly.“When?”“Last—night,” sighed the stranger, uttering the first word in quite a high-pitched tone, the second sounding almost like a groan.He was very shabbily dressed—just an old flannel shirt and a pair of fustian trousers, while his head was covered by one of the regular, broad-brimmed, flop felt hats so common amongst Englishmen for protection from the sun.“Well, you are a cheerful looking gentleman,” thought Mark, and he had hard work on meeting his cousin’s eye to keep from bursting into a fit of laughter. Then a sudden thought struck him.“When did you say you came here?”“Last—night?”“What time?”“No watch,” said the man. “Quite dark.”“But what did you come for?”The man pointed to the ponies, and Mark gazed at his cousin and whispered, “I say, I think I have seen this fellow before.”“Hanging about that dealer’s yard?”“Yes.”“I am sure I did,” whispered Dean, as the man turned from them to check the wandering of another of the ponies.“Dean,” said Mark, “I have got an idea.”“Let’s have it.”“That chap has come to steal our ponies.”“Bother!” cried Dean contemptuously. “When did you say you came?”“Last—night,” said the man.“Here, I say, you, sir,” cried Mark. “Did you say you came here last night to look after our ponies?”“Yes,” said the man, and they saw that he was working with his left hand now, snipping at the stubbly beard with the scissors, while with the other he held his moustache back to keep it from being cut.“Look here,” said Mark; “was it you who came close up to me in the dark when I was on the watch?”“Yes,” said the man sadly. “Thought you was asleep.”“It was lucky for you that I did not shoot you.”“Yes,” said the man dismally, as he slowly took off his hat and poked one long thin finger through a hole that the boys had not previously noticed, shook his head at it sadly, put his hat on again, and went on snipping as before.“There, Dean! Now, then, was it a false alarm?”“Well, no; but I should never have taken this chap for a lion,” replied his cousin. “Here, I say, you, sir, why do you speak as if you were sorry that my cousin did not hit you?”“Wasn’t,” said the man, mournfully snipping away.“Well, what do you want?”“Breakfast,” said the man. “Had none since you come away.”“That’s cool,” said Mark, as he looked at the man suspiciously. “Oh, here come Buck Denham and Dan. They have smelt that something’s wrong about the ponies. Here,” he continued, turning to the two fresh arrivals, “what are you two laughing at?”“At ’im, sir,” whispered Dan, as the oddity moved away after a pony.“Yes, he’s rather a rum ’un to look at, gen’lemen,” said Buck, in the same low tone. “I have seen him before. Sort of hang-about as has to do with him as sold you those ponies. I think he’s a bit touched in his head—dotty, you know.”“That’s what I think too, gentlemen,” whispered Dan. “I have been to ’Stralia—Sydney, you know, where chaps go out shepherding and don’t see anything but the woolly ones sometimes for three months together, and I have heard as some of them quite goes off their heads, miserable and lonely like, for they have nobody to talk to but the sheep.”“But this isn’t Australia,” said Mark.“And this fellow hasn’t been with sheep,” added Dean, “but ponies.”“No, sir,” said Dan; “but horses do just as well.”“That they wouldn’t,” cried Mark. “A man who had horses with him could make companions of them.”“Yes,” cried Dean, “and have a good long ride every now and then.”“To be sure,” added Mark. “A man who had a horse or a dog for companion could not go off his head. Look at Robinson Crusoe; he was jolly enough with a poll parrot.”“Oh, yes, sir; but then a poll parrot could talk.”“Yes, but he had to teach it first,” said Dean.“Yes, sir,” said Dan, “but you couldn’t teach a sheep. Why, if you had one of them for years you would never get anything out of him but Baa!”“Bah, then, to what you are saying,” cried Mark. “Here, I say, you, sir,” he cried, looking in an amused way at their visitor, who had finished his clipping, pocketed his scissors, and had taken hold of his moustachios as if they were reins and stroked them down with a twist, looking dolefully at those about him the while; “I’ll answer for it that we give you some breakfast, and then you had better be off.”The man shook his head.“Eh? What do you mean by that?” said Mark.The man shook his head again and took out his scissors as if about to begin clipping once more, but bethought himself and put them back.Dan chuckled as if he thought it was very good fun, and Buck bent down and whispered something in the little fellow’s ear.“Here, what’s that?” cried Mark sharply.“He means he’s going to stop to dinner, sir.”It was said quite in a whisper, but the man proved that he was keen enough of ear.“That’s so,” he said mournfully, as if the dinner would be a punishment.“What, you mean to stay to dinner?”The man nodded, paused for a few moments, and then with a heavy sigh—“Yes.”“Well, you are a cucumber,” said Mark, “upon my word!”“Not in season,” said the man.“Cheek!” said Dean laughing.The man looked up sharply.“Bacon,” he said sadly; and there was an explosion of laughter.“Bob isn’t here; but you are a queer fellow,” said Mark.“Yes,” said the man; and he looked from one to the other, and sighed again.“Here, I say,” continued Mark, “where does it hurt you?”“Hurt me?” replied the man.“Yes. Inside? Are you in pain?”The man shook his head.“My way,” he said, and he sighed again.“Well, don’t talk like that.”“Eh? No,” said the man; and he reached out his hand to pass it over the muzzle of one of the ponies that had raised its head from where it had been cropping the green shoots of a dwarf shrub.“The ponies seem to be very good friends with you.”“Yes, sir,” said Buck; “they follow him like dogs.”“Know me,” said the man sadly.“Well, you needn’t cry about it,” said Dean.“Oh, that’s it,” cried Mark; “I see. Poor chap! He came to see them again, to say good-bye.”The man shook his head.“No,” he said; “going with them.”“Oh, are you?” cried Mark. “I am glad you told me. But somebody else will have a word or two about that.”“Who?” said the man.“Why, my father.”“But he bought the ponies,” said the man.“Yes,” cried Mark, “but he didn’t buy you.”“No,” said the man. “Same thing. I belong to them.”“I say, Dozey,” cried Mark, “you are wide awake enough now: did you ever hear anything like this before.”“Never,” was the prompt reply.“Ponies no good without me,” said the man.“Why?” cried the boys, in a breath.“Won’t stop with you. Run back to the town to look for me,” he said, speaking with some animation now.“Nonsense!” cried Mark. “We will picket them.”The man laughed, and then as Mark tried to frown him down with a very severe look, he put his hand in his pocket,took out his scissors again, and put them back after a snip, and then looked round at his four companions in turn.“See here,” he said, thrusting two of his fingers into his mouth as he turned sharply away and started off, going swiftly over the ground and leaping almost like an antelope over every bush that came in his way, while he gave vent to a shrill whistle, which he modulated from time to time.At the first note the ponies raised their heads from where they were cropping the sedge, and at the second, one of the sturdy little fellows uttered a shrill neigh, while at the third note, which turned into a trill, the little animals dashed off at a canter, scattering the sandy earth behind them as they tore after the utterer of the cheery sounds.

The doctor suggested that after such a broken night it would be as well to have an early breakfast before they started.

“Yes, capital,” cried Mark. “I feel that that is just what I want to put me right.”

“See to it at once, then, Dan,” said the doctor. “Tell some of the men to get you some wood, and I will talk to the bullock drivers. Oh, there are the two keepers. They will help you to get wood and fetch water. Mind they get it from a clear part of the river.”

“Ay, ay, sir!” said the sailor.

“How wonderfully well that poor fellow begins to look,” said the doctor.

“Yes,” replied Sir James, laughing; “and he thoroughly deserves the name of the Handy Mann. He is never happy unless he is doing something—regularly valeting me and the boys. What do you say to a walk round while they are preparing breakfast?”

“I am willing,” replied the doctor, “and we will take Denham and his men as we go.”

They started off, and before they reached the two long spans of oxen where they had been turned to graze, Buck Denham’s voice was heard storming at somebody.

“Quarrel, seemingly, captain,” said Sir James, smiling.

“Or a fit of bad temper,” said the doctor, “because the big fellow’s night, was disturbed. Here, what’s the matter, Denham?” he continued, as they reached the shady pasture where the sleek bullocks were knee deep in rich grass, evidently laying in a store for emergencies when fodder might be scarce. “Don’t say that any of the cattle have strayed?”

“Strayed, sir? Not they! They are all right—eight-and-forty of them. I counted them over twice to make sure, after the night’s scare. My bullocks are all right. I only wish I could trust my men as well as I can them.”

“What has happened, then?”

“You ask him, sir,” replied Denham, pointing to the miserable looking little Hottentot—“a pretty sort of a half-bred animal! Look at him squatting there grinning like one of them there dog-nosed baboons.”

“Don’t insult the man,” said the doctor sharply. “What has he done?”

“Man, sir! I don’t call him a man,” said Buck Denham. “Got nothing to do but a bit of driving now and then and to give a shout at his span, and naturally I trusted him as I was keeping my eye on the oxen to keep his on the two forelopers. I let him do it because he understands their lingo better than I do.”

“Well?” said the doctor. “What then?”

“What then, sir? Here are we just two days out from the town, and he’s lost one of them already.”

“Lost? Nonsense!”

“Well, where is he, then, sir? He has gone.”

“Gone?”

“Yes, sir. Sniffed at his job, I suppose, and gone off. I saw him safe enough last night; this morning he is nowhere. My foreloper he was, and now we shall have to stop here three or four days, perhaps a week, while I go back and hunt up another; and I can tell you, sir, they are precious scarce.”

“That’s vexatious,” said the doctor. “Don’t be put out, Denham, I think I see how it is. The poor fellow was no doubt scared by the alarm of the lion in the night, and very likely we shall see him come creeping in before it is time to start.”

“Oh, thank you, sir,” said the big fellow. “I am very glad you take it so easy. Some gen’lemen would be ready to jump down a poor man’s throat for half this.”

“Indeed!” said the doctor, smiling. “Well, I don’t think you will find Sir James and me so unreasonable as to bully a good servant for an unavoidable mishap.”

“Thank you, sir,” said the big fellow, smiling. “That’s done me good. I was afraid to meet you this morning, and I hope you are right, because we must have two of us to each waggon, and I don’t suppose either of your servants would like to be asked to do such nigger’s work. Hadn’t I better start back at once and get another? It would save time if I took one of them ponies.”

Sir James winced as he looked at the big fellow’s proportions, and glanced uneasily at the doctor, who said, smiling, “No, we will wait to see if the man turns up, and if not our two boys shall mount the ponies and canter back to the station with a note to Captain Lawton asking him to help us to a fresh foreloper.”

The man chuckled heartily.

“Why do you laugh?” said the doctor. “Do you think the captain cannot be trusted?”

“Oh, him, sir,” replied the man. “Cap’n Lawton’s a regular gen’leman. He’d do anything to serve a fellow-countryman. I was grinning, sir, because you thought I should be too much for the pony. Well, I am a big ’un, out and outer; but I growed so. You are quite right, sir, it would be rather hard on one of the brave little beasts, and I hope that black ’un will show up again, but I’m afraid of it. That lion last night scared him, but he’d be more scared to come and face you gen’lemen again.”

Meanwhile, Mark had proposed that they should go to look at the spot where he stood to fire at his disturber. This was agreed to, and as they had to pass Dan Mann, Mark put in a word or two about hurrying on the breakfast, and told him to be sure to frizzle the bacon well.

“Ay, ay, sir!” cried the little fellow, beaming upon them; and they went on, looked at the ground by daylight, and saw no trace of footprints, only finding the spot where the unpleasant thorn bush had been crushed by Mark’s fall.

“Yes,” said the boy, giving a bit of a writhe and rubbing his back softly, “that’s where I went down, sure enough, and I believe I have got another thorn in there now. My word, how stiff my shoulder is! I shan’t be in a hurry to fire two barrels of a rifle together again. Yes, I stood just there when I fired, just as the beast had reared himself up—itself, I suppose I ought to say, for I don’t know whether it was a cock or a hen—but hallo, where are the ponies?”

“Oh, Peter and Bob have taken them down to water, I suppose,” said Dean.

“That they haven’t. There they are, over yonder.”

“Well, then, Buck Denham must have driven them over there with the bullocks to have a feed before we start.”

“Let’s ask Dan. Here, cooky, where are the ponies?”

“Dunno, sir. They were gone when I came to see to the fire. I expect Denham has taken them along with the bullocks.”

“Come on, Dean. Let’s go and see how the little fellows look.”

The boys hurried amongst the trees to where Denham, the Hottentot and the foreloper were watching the grazing cattle, with the Illaka seated upon a fallen tree nursing his spear and looking on, while in the distance, each with his gun over his arm, they could see Sir James and the doctor, evidently making a circuit of the camp.

“Ponies, gen’lemen?” said the big fellow. “No, I ain’t seen them; I have been so busy over my bullocks. Somebody must have taken them down to the riverside to get a good feed a-piece of that strong reedy grass that they are so fond of. You will find them down there.”

“Come along,” cried Mark, and the two boys hurried off in the direction of the river, threading their way amongst the trees till they caught sight of the running water sparkling in the rays of the morning sun.

“There they are,” cried Mark, “munching away and regularly enjoying themselves. Oh, you beauties! But hallo! Who’s that chap watching them?” and he drew his cousin’s attention to a tall, thin, peculiar looking fellow who was standing close to the water’s edge watching the ponies as if to keep them from going farther along the stream.

The man turned his head as he heard the boys approach, and then looked back at the ponies and drove one a short distance nearer the camp.

“Hullo, you!” cried Mark sharply. “What are you doing here?”

The man shrugged his shoulders, and made a comprehensive sign which included the four little animals.

“Yes, I see that,” said Mark, “but what do you want here?”

The man shook his head sadly, and the boys saw that he was very yellow, as if dried in the sun, and had a particularly thin and peculiar face, with two long, pendant, yellowish moustachios which reached far beneath his chin. His beard was closely clipped, and they noted that he held a pair of small scissors, and as he drew back one of his twisted moustachios, he was occupied the while carefully snipping off the greyish stubble that just showed slightly upon his chin.

“But how did you come here?” asked Mark.

“Walked,” said the man sadly.

“When?”

“Last—night,” sighed the stranger, uttering the first word in quite a high-pitched tone, the second sounding almost like a groan.

He was very shabbily dressed—just an old flannel shirt and a pair of fustian trousers, while his head was covered by one of the regular, broad-brimmed, flop felt hats so common amongst Englishmen for protection from the sun.

“Well, you are a cheerful looking gentleman,” thought Mark, and he had hard work on meeting his cousin’s eye to keep from bursting into a fit of laughter. Then a sudden thought struck him.

“When did you say you came here?”

“Last—night?”

“What time?”

“No watch,” said the man. “Quite dark.”

“But what did you come for?”

The man pointed to the ponies, and Mark gazed at his cousin and whispered, “I say, I think I have seen this fellow before.”

“Hanging about that dealer’s yard?”

“Yes.”

“I am sure I did,” whispered Dean, as the man turned from them to check the wandering of another of the ponies.

“Dean,” said Mark, “I have got an idea.”

“Let’s have it.”

“That chap has come to steal our ponies.”

“Bother!” cried Dean contemptuously. “When did you say you came?”

“Last—night,” said the man.

“Here, I say, you, sir,” cried Mark. “Did you say you came here last night to look after our ponies?”

“Yes,” said the man, and they saw that he was working with his left hand now, snipping at the stubbly beard with the scissors, while with the other he held his moustache back to keep it from being cut.

“Look here,” said Mark; “was it you who came close up to me in the dark when I was on the watch?”

“Yes,” said the man sadly. “Thought you was asleep.”

“It was lucky for you that I did not shoot you.”

“Yes,” said the man dismally, as he slowly took off his hat and poked one long thin finger through a hole that the boys had not previously noticed, shook his head at it sadly, put his hat on again, and went on snipping as before.

“There, Dean! Now, then, was it a false alarm?”

“Well, no; but I should never have taken this chap for a lion,” replied his cousin. “Here, I say, you, sir, why do you speak as if you were sorry that my cousin did not hit you?”

“Wasn’t,” said the man, mournfully snipping away.

“Well, what do you want?”

“Breakfast,” said the man. “Had none since you come away.”

“That’s cool,” said Mark, as he looked at the man suspiciously. “Oh, here come Buck Denham and Dan. They have smelt that something’s wrong about the ponies. Here,” he continued, turning to the two fresh arrivals, “what are you two laughing at?”

“At ’im, sir,” whispered Dan, as the oddity moved away after a pony.

“Yes, he’s rather a rum ’un to look at, gen’lemen,” said Buck, in the same low tone. “I have seen him before. Sort of hang-about as has to do with him as sold you those ponies. I think he’s a bit touched in his head—dotty, you know.”

“That’s what I think too, gentlemen,” whispered Dan. “I have been to ’Stralia—Sydney, you know, where chaps go out shepherding and don’t see anything but the woolly ones sometimes for three months together, and I have heard as some of them quite goes off their heads, miserable and lonely like, for they have nobody to talk to but the sheep.”

“But this isn’t Australia,” said Mark.

“And this fellow hasn’t been with sheep,” added Dean, “but ponies.”

“No, sir,” said Dan; “but horses do just as well.”

“That they wouldn’t,” cried Mark. “A man who had horses with him could make companions of them.”

“Yes,” cried Dean, “and have a good long ride every now and then.”

“To be sure,” added Mark. “A man who had a horse or a dog for companion could not go off his head. Look at Robinson Crusoe; he was jolly enough with a poll parrot.”

“Oh, yes, sir; but then a poll parrot could talk.”

“Yes, but he had to teach it first,” said Dean.

“Yes, sir,” said Dan, “but you couldn’t teach a sheep. Why, if you had one of them for years you would never get anything out of him but Baa!”

“Bah, then, to what you are saying,” cried Mark. “Here, I say, you, sir,” he cried, looking in an amused way at their visitor, who had finished his clipping, pocketed his scissors, and had taken hold of his moustachios as if they were reins and stroked them down with a twist, looking dolefully at those about him the while; “I’ll answer for it that we give you some breakfast, and then you had better be off.”

The man shook his head.

“Eh? What do you mean by that?” said Mark.

The man shook his head again and took out his scissors as if about to begin clipping once more, but bethought himself and put them back.

Dan chuckled as if he thought it was very good fun, and Buck bent down and whispered something in the little fellow’s ear.

“Here, what’s that?” cried Mark sharply.

“He means he’s going to stop to dinner, sir.”

It was said quite in a whisper, but the man proved that he was keen enough of ear.

“That’s so,” he said mournfully, as if the dinner would be a punishment.

“What, you mean to stay to dinner?”

The man nodded, paused for a few moments, and then with a heavy sigh—

“Yes.”

“Well, you are a cucumber,” said Mark, “upon my word!”

“Not in season,” said the man.

“Cheek!” said Dean laughing.

The man looked up sharply.

“Bacon,” he said sadly; and there was an explosion of laughter.

“Bob isn’t here; but you are a queer fellow,” said Mark.

“Yes,” said the man; and he looked from one to the other, and sighed again.

“Here, I say,” continued Mark, “where does it hurt you?”

“Hurt me?” replied the man.

“Yes. Inside? Are you in pain?”

The man shook his head.

“My way,” he said, and he sighed again.

“Well, don’t talk like that.”

“Eh? No,” said the man; and he reached out his hand to pass it over the muzzle of one of the ponies that had raised its head from where it had been cropping the green shoots of a dwarf shrub.

“The ponies seem to be very good friends with you.”

“Yes, sir,” said Buck; “they follow him like dogs.”

“Know me,” said the man sadly.

“Well, you needn’t cry about it,” said Dean.

“Oh, that’s it,” cried Mark; “I see. Poor chap! He came to see them again, to say good-bye.”

The man shook his head.

“No,” he said; “going with them.”

“Oh, are you?” cried Mark. “I am glad you told me. But somebody else will have a word or two about that.”

“Who?” said the man.

“Why, my father.”

“But he bought the ponies,” said the man.

“Yes,” cried Mark, “but he didn’t buy you.”

“No,” said the man. “Same thing. I belong to them.”

“I say, Dozey,” cried Mark, “you are wide awake enough now: did you ever hear anything like this before.”

“Never,” was the prompt reply.

“Ponies no good without me,” said the man.

“Why?” cried the boys, in a breath.

“Won’t stop with you. Run back to the town to look for me,” he said, speaking with some animation now.

“Nonsense!” cried Mark. “We will picket them.”

The man laughed, and then as Mark tried to frown him down with a very severe look, he put his hand in his pocket,took out his scissors again, and put them back after a snip, and then looked round at his four companions in turn.

“See here,” he said, thrusting two of his fingers into his mouth as he turned sharply away and started off, going swiftly over the ground and leaping almost like an antelope over every bush that came in his way, while he gave vent to a shrill whistle, which he modulated from time to time.

At the first note the ponies raised their heads from where they were cropping the sedge, and at the second, one of the sturdy little fellows uttered a shrill neigh, while at the third note, which turned into a trill, the little animals dashed off at a canter, scattering the sandy earth behind them as they tore after the utterer of the cheery sounds.

Chapter Eleven.Making a Foreloper.Dean’s jaw fell, and he stood staring after the strange visitor with so vacant an expression of countenance that in spite of his annoyance Mark burst into a hearty laugh.“What are you grinning at?” cried Dean angrily.“Your phiz. Why, whatever does that fellow call himself?”“A horse stealer!” cried Dean excitedly. “That’s what he meant by coming last night.”“Yes,” cried Mark. “Come on and fetch them back.”“All right, sir,” said Buck; “but how? You’d want a rifle to fetch him down.”“Hullo! What does this mean?” cried Sir James, as he joined them, with the doctor. “Why are the ponies being driven away?”“That fellow!” cried Mark wildly. “A thief, father!”“To be sure,” said Sir James. “But this is a trick. We have been imposed upon.”“Yes, father. This is the chap that crawled up in the dark, and I took for a lion. He’s a horse stealer.”“Well, the law will soon set that right.”“Yes,” said the doctor, “but it means a long tramp back to the town.”“Say, Dan, old chap, this ’ere’s a rum game,” whispered Buck. “What do you think of it?”“Think I should like to get hold of that long-legged ’un. I’d make him sing to a different tune instead of giving us another specimen of his whistlin’.”By this time the ponies were far down the track, headed by their strange visitor, whom the boys had fully expected from moment to moment to see leap upon one of his companion’s backs.“Well,” said Mark, “this is getting up for a refresher before breakfast!”“Yes, sir,” said Buck. “It’s about spoilt mine. Why didn’t you bring him down last night, Mr Mark? I am sure he desarved it.”“No, he didn’t,” cried the lad addressed. “Look at that! I say, father, hooray! He’s come back.”The boy was quite right, for it was plain enough now, distant as the objects were, to see in the clear bright morning their nocturnal visitor describe a curve upon the open country side and, slackening his pace, begin trotting back, the little drove of ponies dropping from their canter into a steady trot, coming nearer and nearer till their leader brought them to where the party had camped for the night; and here they drew up short and began to crop the tender green shoots again, while the strange visitor, who did not seem in the slightest degree out of breath, drew his long pendent moustachios through his hands.“Well, sir,” said Sir James sharply, “pray, what does this mean?”“Mean?” said the man sadly. “Ponies—know me.”“So it seems,” said Sir James; “but I’ve bought them.”“Yes,” said the man, in his most melancholy tone.“Well, what were you going to say by way of explanation?”“Nothing.”“Well, what do you want?”“Breakfast.”“That’s what he said before,” cried Dean.“Hungry,” said the man, quite reproachfully.The doctor laughed, and the rest joined in chorus, Dan beginning to stamp about in the exuberance of his delight.“Beg pardon, gentleman,” he said, checking himself suddenly, “but he do set me off.”“But the worst of it is, my man,” said the doctor, “that this is resolving itself into no laughing matter.”“No, sir,” said Buck respectfully. “There’s more cry about him than laugh.”“Yes,” said Mark sharply. “If you had been here and heard him talk it would have sounded to you as if he had come for help because he was ill.”“Well, whatever is done,” said Sir James, “we must give the poor fellow some breakfast, and follow it up with a few shillings, or we shall be having him putting a stop to our expedition.”“Mind he doesn’t hear what you say, father,” whispered Mark.“To be sure,” said the doctor. “We mustn’t let him realise what a power he has in his hands.”“In his fingers, I think,” said Mark.“And it seems to me,” said Sir James, “that he already knows it. Here, what about breakfast? We will talk about it over our morning meal.”They did, with the result that their party was afterwards increased by one who had already proved how he could manage the fresh purchases. And if further inducement were needed it was afforded by Mark, who suddenly exclaimed, “I’ve got it, doctor!”“Got what?”“This fellow can manage ponies splendidly.”“Well, we know that,” said the doctor drily.“Yes,” continued Mark; “but why couldn’t a man who can manage dumb animals like that be quite at home with bullocks?”“Good boy,” said Sir James. “There is something in that. You mean, for him to take the place of the bullock leader—fore—what you call him.”“Loper, father.”“Yes. Is there any connection between loper and leaper, doctor?” continued Sir James.“I cannot say on the instant. It wants thinking out, sir. Antelope—loper—leaper.”“Well, never mind that,” said Sir James. “But if he can manage the bullocks too that is an additional reason why he should stay.”“But he is such a dismal, unhappy sort of fellow,” protested Mark.“Yes, boy, but he can be very useful to us though not very ornamental,” said the doctor.“No, sir,” said Dean, “I believe that the oxen would take fright at him.”“Use is second nature, Dean,” said Mark.“What do you think little Dan said about him just now?” said Dean.“Can’t say, of course,” said his uncle. “What did he say?”“That he was all shadow and flam.”“Yes,” cried Mark; “and Buck Denham compared him to a human skeleton on stilts. I don’t like him; but I suppose we shall get used to him in time.”“Tut, tut, tut!” ejaculated Sir James. “Don’t trifle, boys; this is a serious matter. Here, Mark, go and tell Buck Denham that I want to speak to him.”The man came up, looking very serious, and shaking his head.“Very sorry, sir,” he said, before Sir James could speak, “but I have just been having it over with that other little black, and he tells me that his mate came to him after the scare about the lion, and said he would not go any further, and went off at once.”“Oh,” said Sir James. “Well, this is your business, doctor. I said I wouldn’t interfere. You are captain. You had better tell Denham what we have been talking about.”“Yes. Look here, my man; we have come to the conclusion that this fellow would be very useful with the ponies.”“Yes, sir?”“And I want to ask you whether you think he could take the foreloper’s place as well?”“Well, sir,” said the man, with a grim smile, “he doesn’t look much like one, certainly, and I don’t believe he knows anything about it.”“But couldn’t you train him?”“Oh, yes, I could train him, sir. I don’t think the beasts would take to him all at once, but it seems to me the queshtun is would he do it?”“I shall make that the condition as to his staying,” said the doctor firmly.

Dean’s jaw fell, and he stood staring after the strange visitor with so vacant an expression of countenance that in spite of his annoyance Mark burst into a hearty laugh.

“What are you grinning at?” cried Dean angrily.

“Your phiz. Why, whatever does that fellow call himself?”

“A horse stealer!” cried Dean excitedly. “That’s what he meant by coming last night.”

“Yes,” cried Mark. “Come on and fetch them back.”

“All right, sir,” said Buck; “but how? You’d want a rifle to fetch him down.”

“Hullo! What does this mean?” cried Sir James, as he joined them, with the doctor. “Why are the ponies being driven away?”

“That fellow!” cried Mark wildly. “A thief, father!”

“To be sure,” said Sir James. “But this is a trick. We have been imposed upon.”

“Yes, father. This is the chap that crawled up in the dark, and I took for a lion. He’s a horse stealer.”

“Well, the law will soon set that right.”

“Yes,” said the doctor, “but it means a long tramp back to the town.”

“Say, Dan, old chap, this ’ere’s a rum game,” whispered Buck. “What do you think of it?”

“Think I should like to get hold of that long-legged ’un. I’d make him sing to a different tune instead of giving us another specimen of his whistlin’.”

By this time the ponies were far down the track, headed by their strange visitor, whom the boys had fully expected from moment to moment to see leap upon one of his companion’s backs.

“Well,” said Mark, “this is getting up for a refresher before breakfast!”

“Yes, sir,” said Buck. “It’s about spoilt mine. Why didn’t you bring him down last night, Mr Mark? I am sure he desarved it.”

“No, he didn’t,” cried the lad addressed. “Look at that! I say, father, hooray! He’s come back.”

The boy was quite right, for it was plain enough now, distant as the objects were, to see in the clear bright morning their nocturnal visitor describe a curve upon the open country side and, slackening his pace, begin trotting back, the little drove of ponies dropping from their canter into a steady trot, coming nearer and nearer till their leader brought them to where the party had camped for the night; and here they drew up short and began to crop the tender green shoots again, while the strange visitor, who did not seem in the slightest degree out of breath, drew his long pendent moustachios through his hands.

“Well, sir,” said Sir James sharply, “pray, what does this mean?”

“Mean?” said the man sadly. “Ponies—know me.”

“So it seems,” said Sir James; “but I’ve bought them.”

“Yes,” said the man, in his most melancholy tone.

“Well, what were you going to say by way of explanation?”

“Nothing.”

“Well, what do you want?”

“Breakfast.”

“That’s what he said before,” cried Dean.

“Hungry,” said the man, quite reproachfully.

The doctor laughed, and the rest joined in chorus, Dan beginning to stamp about in the exuberance of his delight.

“Beg pardon, gentleman,” he said, checking himself suddenly, “but he do set me off.”

“But the worst of it is, my man,” said the doctor, “that this is resolving itself into no laughing matter.”

“No, sir,” said Buck respectfully. “There’s more cry about him than laugh.”

“Yes,” said Mark sharply. “If you had been here and heard him talk it would have sounded to you as if he had come for help because he was ill.”

“Well, whatever is done,” said Sir James, “we must give the poor fellow some breakfast, and follow it up with a few shillings, or we shall be having him putting a stop to our expedition.”

“Mind he doesn’t hear what you say, father,” whispered Mark.

“To be sure,” said the doctor. “We mustn’t let him realise what a power he has in his hands.”

“In his fingers, I think,” said Mark.

“And it seems to me,” said Sir James, “that he already knows it. Here, what about breakfast? We will talk about it over our morning meal.”

They did, with the result that their party was afterwards increased by one who had already proved how he could manage the fresh purchases. And if further inducement were needed it was afforded by Mark, who suddenly exclaimed, “I’ve got it, doctor!”

“Got what?”

“This fellow can manage ponies splendidly.”

“Well, we know that,” said the doctor drily.

“Yes,” continued Mark; “but why couldn’t a man who can manage dumb animals like that be quite at home with bullocks?”

“Good boy,” said Sir James. “There is something in that. You mean, for him to take the place of the bullock leader—fore—what you call him.”

“Loper, father.”

“Yes. Is there any connection between loper and leaper, doctor?” continued Sir James.

“I cannot say on the instant. It wants thinking out, sir. Antelope—loper—leaper.”

“Well, never mind that,” said Sir James. “But if he can manage the bullocks too that is an additional reason why he should stay.”

“But he is such a dismal, unhappy sort of fellow,” protested Mark.

“Yes, boy, but he can be very useful to us though not very ornamental,” said the doctor.

“No, sir,” said Dean, “I believe that the oxen would take fright at him.”

“Use is second nature, Dean,” said Mark.

“What do you think little Dan said about him just now?” said Dean.

“Can’t say, of course,” said his uncle. “What did he say?”

“That he was all shadow and flam.”

“Yes,” cried Mark; “and Buck Denham compared him to a human skeleton on stilts. I don’t like him; but I suppose we shall get used to him in time.”

“Tut, tut, tut!” ejaculated Sir James. “Don’t trifle, boys; this is a serious matter. Here, Mark, go and tell Buck Denham that I want to speak to him.”

The man came up, looking very serious, and shaking his head.

“Very sorry, sir,” he said, before Sir James could speak, “but I have just been having it over with that other little black, and he tells me that his mate came to him after the scare about the lion, and said he would not go any further, and went off at once.”

“Oh,” said Sir James. “Well, this is your business, doctor. I said I wouldn’t interfere. You are captain. You had better tell Denham what we have been talking about.”

“Yes. Look here, my man; we have come to the conclusion that this fellow would be very useful with the ponies.”

“Yes, sir?”

“And I want to ask you whether you think he could take the foreloper’s place as well?”

“Well, sir,” said the man, with a grim smile, “he doesn’t look much like one, certainly, and I don’t believe he knows anything about it.”

“But couldn’t you train him?”

“Oh, yes, I could train him, sir. I don’t think the beasts would take to him all at once, but it seems to me the queshtun is would he do it?”

“I shall make that the condition as to his staying,” said the doctor firmly.

Chapter Twelve.In Mid-Veldt.“I know what I shall do,” said Dean, as they prepared for their morning start, during which he had been thoughtfully watching the helpful way in which their new attendant loaded the ponies, over which he seemed to have the most perfect command.“Well, what shall you do?” said his cousin.“Learn that whistle, and manage the ponies myself.”“Humph!” grunted Mark. “That will be no good as long as that dreary fellow is near them.”“I say,” said Dean, as he and his cousin were tramping along in the rear, gazing eagerly about to the right and left of the track, thoroughly enjoying the beauty of the scenery, and looking out the while for something that might be a pleasant addition to their next meal.“Well, what do you say? That you don’t see any game?”“No,” said Dean. “I want you to look at black Mak.”“Well, what of him? I think he’s as dingy black a nigger as ever I saw. Not a bit like those flat-nosed woolly-headed fellows that we used to see at home.”“I don’t mean that.”“What do you mean, then?” said Mark impatiently.“That he seems so sour and surly, as different as can be from what he was yesterday. We didn’t do anything to give him offence. Let’s see; what did we do yesterday and the day before to hurt his feelings?”“I don’t know,” said Mark. “I did nothing. What did you do?”“Nothing,” replied Dean. “He was as jolly and smiling as could be till last night; and see how he helped about the scare. Now, I tell you what I think.”“Oh, I wish you wouldn’t think so much,” cried Mark. “It makes you seem so slow and sleepy! Well, what do you think?”“I think he is jealous of the new man.”“Right. He doesn’t like the look of him—thinks he’s a bad colour, neither black nor white. You are right, Dean. I saw him scowling at him, now you mention it. Well, we shall have to look out and tell Buck Denham that there must be no quarrelling. If they don’t agree he must take them both by the scruff and knock their heads together.”“Oh, but that will all blow over,” said Dean, “I daresay. There’s nothing for them to disagree over, because this Brown will have his own work to do.”“And black Mak has nothing to do but look on,” put in Mark, laughing.“You forget one thing,” said Dean; “he has to carry his spear.”“Yes, spear,” said Mark eagerly; “and that sets one thinking. That spear is precious sharp.”“How do you know?”“He showed it to me, and seemed as proud of it as could be.”“Well, what then?”“Why, it would be very nasty if they quarrelled and came to a fight. What chance would Mr Staches have, only armed with a small pair of scissors?”The days wore on, one strongly resembling another, and though the black guide stalked about like a superintendent and was rather given to scowl at the forelopers, he every now and then unbent from his savage dignity, and was always the best of friends with the boys. In fact, upon occasions when he was marching along with them beside the bullocks, or by them when they were mounted on a couple of ponies, he would even unbend so far as to allow one of them to carry his spear, evidently as a great favour and a mark of honour.“Treats it,” said Mark merrily, “as if it were his sceptre.”But there was no suggestion of quarrelling, and the man was seen at his best and full of smiles when, as the bullocks plodded sluggishly along, hunting excursions were made off to the right or left of the trail—a trail which the party formed for themselves, for the old ones soon died out—the new one being formed as to direction by their guide himself. He selected the most open country, and pointed out with his spear some distant object for which Buck Denham was to make, and when it was reached in the evening it was invariably found to be a spot where there was a good supply of water and food for the cattle.So far from there being any quarrelling on the side of Brown—Dunn Brown, as to their great amusement he told the boys was his full name, Dunn from his mother, and Brown from his father—the long, thin, peculiar looking fellow settled down as calmly as if he had been in Sir James’s service half his life.He was a kind and careful tender of the ponies, and after a few displays of awkwardness which Buck Denham corrected in the most friendly way, he was soon quite at home with the bullocks.“Why, the great lumbering, fat, stupid brutes are beginning quite to know him, gentlemen, and I should not be at all surprised if one of these days we find him whistling to them and making them come to him like the ponies.”As the party journeyed on day after day farther and farther from civilisation, the expedition was all that could be desired. Game was plentiful and the two keepers were quite in their element, so that the larder was well stocked, and they took care that there was plenty of sport for the two lads whenever the waggons’ course was marked down and the little party, trusting to the drivers to make their way to the given point, struck off in a different direction so as to make adétourand meet at their appointed centre before night.The ponies enabled their riders to get many a shot at the several varieties of antelope—boks, as they were generally called—while as game was so abundantly plentiful, the boys were asked by the doctor what they would seek for that day when they would sometimes decide on devoting one barrel of their double guns to small shot, the other in case of danger being loaded with a bullet. Then they would make the Illaka understand what they required, and he would lead them to where there was abundance of a large kind of partridge, or francolin, which was delicious eating; or take them to some place at the edge of the forest where he knew from experience that the harsh, metallic-voiced, speckled guinea-fowl would be coming home to roost.This would always be when the supply of the larder was very low, and then, with the two keepers to load, a heavy bag would invariably be made, and a pretty good odour of burning feathers pervade the camp.Camp was formed one night with all the precautions made such as were customary in the part of the world through which they were travelling, so as to carefully secure the draught animals and the ponies, for however peaceful and free from danger the country might seem, the black always marched about shouldering his spear and watching that this was done, while after noting how careful the man was, the doctor gave him a few words of praise and left these precautions to him, while these safeguards always included the collecting of a supply of wood sufficient to keep up a good blazing fire till morning.“I suppose this is all right,” said Mark, who was extra tired and had several times yawned widely after partaking of an ample supper, “but all these days we have been travelling farther and farther into the depth of the country we haven’t seen a single big beast, let alone a lion.”“Only the one you shot at, Mark,” said his cousin.“You don’t seem as if you could forget about my mistake, Dean,” said Mark peevishly. “Here, I think I shall lie down and go to sleep.”“And forget all about its being your turn to take first watch?” said the doctor, smiling.“What, again?” cried the boy peevishly, “Oh, how soon the nights do come round! Well, I don’t have to go on duty for hours yet, so I shall have my nap first. But I say, doctor, I thought that we should always be seeing lions and elephants and giraffes, besides rhinoceroses, which would come charging at the waggons whenever they saw them.”“I daresay you did,” said the doctor quietly.“And here we haven’t seen one—nothing but those little—well, some of them were big—bucks.”“Why, we saw a drove of zebras the other day.”“Yes, we did see them,” replied Mark. “But I wanted to have a shot at an elephant or a giraffe.”“Yes; I suppose you expected to find South Africa a sort of over-abundant Zoological Gardens.”“No, I didn’t,” said Mark; “but I did expect that as soon as we began burning fires to keep off the wild beasts, there would be some to keep off.”“Patience, my dear boy; patience. We have only come a little way into the country as yet.”“A little way!” cried Mark. “Why, you forget, doctor, how many weary days we have been tramping since we left the soldiers’ station.”“Oh, no, I do not, my dear boy. It is a very little way compared with the vastness of this great solid continent. We have not seen a lion yet, but that does not show that we may not have been passing through open country where they are abundant; and very likely if we had omitted to start this blazing fire to-night we might have had a visit from several.”“I vote, then,” cried Mark, whose sleepy fit seemed to have passed over, “that we put the fire out with a few buckets of water and then sit up and watch.”“No,” said Sir James drowsily; “I forbid it. You are not going to allow that, doctor?”“Certainly not, sir; and even if I felt so disposed the black would not allow it. You must be patient, Mark. I dare say we shall meet with more wild beasts than we care for before long, and wild men too.”“I am ready,” said Mark, rather bumptiously; “but I am disappointed, all the same.”“Yes,” said the doctor, “no doubt you are; but you must curb your impatience till we reach the part of the country where the lions are. I thought you were going to have your nap.”“No,” said Mark; “Dean and I are going to have a chat with the men. Dance says he wouldn’t have believed there could have been so many ‘come backs’ in all the world—I say, what’s that?” he cried. “That wasn’t a lion?”“No,” said the doctor, for a long, low, dismal and penetrating howl had gone out upon the night.“What is it, then? There it goes again.”“I form my own idea of what it is,” said the doctor. “You two can go and tell the men to throw some more wood on the fire.”He had hardly spoken when the low and doleful howl rang out again from the distance, and the fire blazed up under the influence of an armful of dead boughs which the Hottentot and the black foreloper had just thrown on, the clear, bright flame showing out the big, heavy figure of Buck Denham and lighting up his face as he turned round to tell the men to bring up more wood for the night supply.The boys sprang up from where they were seated, and hurried round to the other side of the blazing heap where their men had gathered together to sit and have their evening smoke.“Hear that howling?” cried Mark. “You, Pete—Bob—”“Yes, sir; we couldn’t help it,” said the latter. “I was asking Buck Denham what it was, thinking it was one of them great tom cats; but he says it’s only a hy-he—something.”“Hyhaena, my lad—hyhaena.”“Yes, that’s it. Well, it made noise enough for t’other, didn’t it?”“Made noise enough for t’other!” growled the driver. “You wait till you hear the real thing, and you won’t ask questions again like that.”Dance took his pipe out of his mouth and opened his eyes, for he too had grown drowsy in the warmth of the fire, after his long day’s tramp.“I ’eerd it too, and thought it must be a big howl a-howling. You have got howls out here, haven’t you, mate?”“Oh, yes; plenty. But that’s what I said.”The big driver having noted that the men had brought up a plentiful supply of wood sufficient to keep up the beast-scaring beacon, subsided heavily in the full light of the fire and began to fill his pipe.“Now you two,” he said to the Hottentot and the foreloper, “just take a quiet walk round the bullocks, and then you can come back and smoke your pipe of peace.”The Hottentot’s voice sounded very unpleasant and very clicky as he replied sharply, and though it was almost unintelligible Mark made out from it and the driver’s answers that Dunn Brown was already performing that duty.“Oh,” said Buck, “then you needn’t go. That will be all right. Well, Illaka, aren’t you coming to sit down?” For the boys suddenly noticed the black shadowy figure of the guide glide into the firelight, his appearance being emphasised by a flash where the flame played upon the polished leaf-shaped blade of his spear.The man nodded, shook his head, and disappeared again.“What sort of fish do you think there are out in the river here?” asked Bob Bacon.“I don’t know their names,” said Buck Denham quietly, as he went on filling his pipe very slowly; and the two boys sat down one on either side, pricking up their ears at the words “river” and “fish.”The big driver leaned forward, drew out an incandescent piece of wood and quite ceremoniously held it to the bowl of his pipe.“I don’t think you will find any trout,” he said, “like you have at home, but there’s plenty of fish there, I should say, just as there is lower down near Illakaree, and up here I should reckon there’s plenty to fish for.”“Ah!” cried Mark eagerly, as he glanced round at the picturesque group seated in the full blaze of the fire, while the reflections played upon the dark edge of the forest, piercing the great overhanging branches from among which a few startled birds dashed out, winged their way round the circle of light and disappeared again.“Look, Dean; isn’t it beautiful now!”“Thought you wanted to go to sleep,” said his cousin.“Not I! I leave that to you.”“Yes,” continued the big driver, repeating his words, “and I should say there’s plenty up here to fish for.”“I say, Buck, are there so many blacks about here, then?”“Sometimes, sir.”“And do they go fishing?”“No, sir; they may do, but I don’t know as I ever saw a black go fishing. You’ve been to ’Stralia, Dan; do the black fellows out there fish much?”“Much?” said Dan, showing his white teeth. “Yes, and hunt and knock the big kangaroos over with their nulla-nullas and boomerangs. Wittles are precious scarce there, and they have had a hard time of it to get enough grub, and I suppose that’s why they pick holes in the softy wood trees to get the big fat grubs out of them.”“Ugh! Horrid!” said Dean.“No, sir,” said Dean, smiling. “It don’t sound nice, but I know a little about cooking, and when them ’Stralian grubs are nicely cooked over the fire they are not to be sneezed at. There’s another thing too that’s very nice eating, baked or roasted, and that’s a locus’, and I shouldn’t wonder if you could find them out here, for they come in clouds up in the north and eat everything they find.”“Well, don’t cook any for us, Dan,” said Mark.“There’s no need, sir, with such a good supply of venison, as you gents call it, and game birds.”“But I should like you to try your hand with the frying-pan and some fish.”“You catch the fish, Mr Mark, sir, and leave it to me, and I’ll promise to fry it to rights, egged and crumbed and all.”“What!” cried Dean.“Well, no, that arn’t right, sir. Allers speak the truth, Dan, my boy, my grandmother used to say; and I will if I can. I could clean and scale and egg the fish to rights. We can get plenty of them comebacks’ eggs, but the crumbing of them would rather bother me, and I should have to do it with mealie flour.”There was a short silence as the men sat smoking, and then Mark broke out with, “We will have a try for some fish; but who is it does the fishing up here, then, Buck?”The big driver chuckled, and his eyes twinkled in the firelight.“The whoppers, sir.”“The whoppers!”“Yes, sir; the crocs. I daresay if you went down by the river and listened just at daybreak you would hear them at it, flapping the river with their tails to stun the fish.”“But that wouldn’t stun the fish,” cried Dean. “Oh, come, I say, what a traveller’s tale!” And Mark laughed as if agreeing with his cousin.“Well, it may be a traveller’s tale, sir, but if you was there you’d see the fish come to the top upside down, I mean, white side up’ards, and the crocs shovelling them down as fast as you like. That’s all I know about it.”“But is that true, Buck?”“Yes, sir; true enough, for I have seen it. I wouldn’t tell you a tale like that without letting you know it was a bam-bam afterwards.”“Ah, well, I’ll believe you, Buck. Ugh! Listen! What’s that? Did you ever hear anything so horrible in your life! Somebody’s being killed. There it is again! There!”

“I know what I shall do,” said Dean, as they prepared for their morning start, during which he had been thoughtfully watching the helpful way in which their new attendant loaded the ponies, over which he seemed to have the most perfect command.

“Well, what shall you do?” said his cousin.

“Learn that whistle, and manage the ponies myself.”

“Humph!” grunted Mark. “That will be no good as long as that dreary fellow is near them.”

“I say,” said Dean, as he and his cousin were tramping along in the rear, gazing eagerly about to the right and left of the track, thoroughly enjoying the beauty of the scenery, and looking out the while for something that might be a pleasant addition to their next meal.

“Well, what do you say? That you don’t see any game?”

“No,” said Dean. “I want you to look at black Mak.”

“Well, what of him? I think he’s as dingy black a nigger as ever I saw. Not a bit like those flat-nosed woolly-headed fellows that we used to see at home.”

“I don’t mean that.”

“What do you mean, then?” said Mark impatiently.

“That he seems so sour and surly, as different as can be from what he was yesterday. We didn’t do anything to give him offence. Let’s see; what did we do yesterday and the day before to hurt his feelings?”

“I don’t know,” said Mark. “I did nothing. What did you do?”

“Nothing,” replied Dean. “He was as jolly and smiling as could be till last night; and see how he helped about the scare. Now, I tell you what I think.”

“Oh, I wish you wouldn’t think so much,” cried Mark. “It makes you seem so slow and sleepy! Well, what do you think?”

“I think he is jealous of the new man.”

“Right. He doesn’t like the look of him—thinks he’s a bad colour, neither black nor white. You are right, Dean. I saw him scowling at him, now you mention it. Well, we shall have to look out and tell Buck Denham that there must be no quarrelling. If they don’t agree he must take them both by the scruff and knock their heads together.”

“Oh, but that will all blow over,” said Dean, “I daresay. There’s nothing for them to disagree over, because this Brown will have his own work to do.”

“And black Mak has nothing to do but look on,” put in Mark, laughing.

“You forget one thing,” said Dean; “he has to carry his spear.”

“Yes, spear,” said Mark eagerly; “and that sets one thinking. That spear is precious sharp.”

“How do you know?”

“He showed it to me, and seemed as proud of it as could be.”

“Well, what then?”

“Why, it would be very nasty if they quarrelled and came to a fight. What chance would Mr Staches have, only armed with a small pair of scissors?”

The days wore on, one strongly resembling another, and though the black guide stalked about like a superintendent and was rather given to scowl at the forelopers, he every now and then unbent from his savage dignity, and was always the best of friends with the boys. In fact, upon occasions when he was marching along with them beside the bullocks, or by them when they were mounted on a couple of ponies, he would even unbend so far as to allow one of them to carry his spear, evidently as a great favour and a mark of honour.

“Treats it,” said Mark merrily, “as if it were his sceptre.”

But there was no suggestion of quarrelling, and the man was seen at his best and full of smiles when, as the bullocks plodded sluggishly along, hunting excursions were made off to the right or left of the trail—a trail which the party formed for themselves, for the old ones soon died out—the new one being formed as to direction by their guide himself. He selected the most open country, and pointed out with his spear some distant object for which Buck Denham was to make, and when it was reached in the evening it was invariably found to be a spot where there was a good supply of water and food for the cattle.

So far from there being any quarrelling on the side of Brown—Dunn Brown, as to their great amusement he told the boys was his full name, Dunn from his mother, and Brown from his father—the long, thin, peculiar looking fellow settled down as calmly as if he had been in Sir James’s service half his life.

He was a kind and careful tender of the ponies, and after a few displays of awkwardness which Buck Denham corrected in the most friendly way, he was soon quite at home with the bullocks.

“Why, the great lumbering, fat, stupid brutes are beginning quite to know him, gentlemen, and I should not be at all surprised if one of these days we find him whistling to them and making them come to him like the ponies.”

As the party journeyed on day after day farther and farther from civilisation, the expedition was all that could be desired. Game was plentiful and the two keepers were quite in their element, so that the larder was well stocked, and they took care that there was plenty of sport for the two lads whenever the waggons’ course was marked down and the little party, trusting to the drivers to make their way to the given point, struck off in a different direction so as to make adétourand meet at their appointed centre before night.

The ponies enabled their riders to get many a shot at the several varieties of antelope—boks, as they were generally called—while as game was so abundantly plentiful, the boys were asked by the doctor what they would seek for that day when they would sometimes decide on devoting one barrel of their double guns to small shot, the other in case of danger being loaded with a bullet. Then they would make the Illaka understand what they required, and he would lead them to where there was abundance of a large kind of partridge, or francolin, which was delicious eating; or take them to some place at the edge of the forest where he knew from experience that the harsh, metallic-voiced, speckled guinea-fowl would be coming home to roost.

This would always be when the supply of the larder was very low, and then, with the two keepers to load, a heavy bag would invariably be made, and a pretty good odour of burning feathers pervade the camp.

Camp was formed one night with all the precautions made such as were customary in the part of the world through which they were travelling, so as to carefully secure the draught animals and the ponies, for however peaceful and free from danger the country might seem, the black always marched about shouldering his spear and watching that this was done, while after noting how careful the man was, the doctor gave him a few words of praise and left these precautions to him, while these safeguards always included the collecting of a supply of wood sufficient to keep up a good blazing fire till morning.

“I suppose this is all right,” said Mark, who was extra tired and had several times yawned widely after partaking of an ample supper, “but all these days we have been travelling farther and farther into the depth of the country we haven’t seen a single big beast, let alone a lion.”

“Only the one you shot at, Mark,” said his cousin.

“You don’t seem as if you could forget about my mistake, Dean,” said Mark peevishly. “Here, I think I shall lie down and go to sleep.”

“And forget all about its being your turn to take first watch?” said the doctor, smiling.

“What, again?” cried the boy peevishly, “Oh, how soon the nights do come round! Well, I don’t have to go on duty for hours yet, so I shall have my nap first. But I say, doctor, I thought that we should always be seeing lions and elephants and giraffes, besides rhinoceroses, which would come charging at the waggons whenever they saw them.”

“I daresay you did,” said the doctor quietly.

“And here we haven’t seen one—nothing but those little—well, some of them were big—bucks.”

“Why, we saw a drove of zebras the other day.”

“Yes, we did see them,” replied Mark. “But I wanted to have a shot at an elephant or a giraffe.”

“Yes; I suppose you expected to find South Africa a sort of over-abundant Zoological Gardens.”

“No, I didn’t,” said Mark; “but I did expect that as soon as we began burning fires to keep off the wild beasts, there would be some to keep off.”

“Patience, my dear boy; patience. We have only come a little way into the country as yet.”

“A little way!” cried Mark. “Why, you forget, doctor, how many weary days we have been tramping since we left the soldiers’ station.”

“Oh, no, I do not, my dear boy. It is a very little way compared with the vastness of this great solid continent. We have not seen a lion yet, but that does not show that we may not have been passing through open country where they are abundant; and very likely if we had omitted to start this blazing fire to-night we might have had a visit from several.”

“I vote, then,” cried Mark, whose sleepy fit seemed to have passed over, “that we put the fire out with a few buckets of water and then sit up and watch.”

“No,” said Sir James drowsily; “I forbid it. You are not going to allow that, doctor?”

“Certainly not, sir; and even if I felt so disposed the black would not allow it. You must be patient, Mark. I dare say we shall meet with more wild beasts than we care for before long, and wild men too.”

“I am ready,” said Mark, rather bumptiously; “but I am disappointed, all the same.”

“Yes,” said the doctor, “no doubt you are; but you must curb your impatience till we reach the part of the country where the lions are. I thought you were going to have your nap.”

“No,” said Mark; “Dean and I are going to have a chat with the men. Dance says he wouldn’t have believed there could have been so many ‘come backs’ in all the world—I say, what’s that?” he cried. “That wasn’t a lion?”

“No,” said the doctor, for a long, low, dismal and penetrating howl had gone out upon the night.

“What is it, then? There it goes again.”

“I form my own idea of what it is,” said the doctor. “You two can go and tell the men to throw some more wood on the fire.”

He had hardly spoken when the low and doleful howl rang out again from the distance, and the fire blazed up under the influence of an armful of dead boughs which the Hottentot and the black foreloper had just thrown on, the clear, bright flame showing out the big, heavy figure of Buck Denham and lighting up his face as he turned round to tell the men to bring up more wood for the night supply.

The boys sprang up from where they were seated, and hurried round to the other side of the blazing heap where their men had gathered together to sit and have their evening smoke.

“Hear that howling?” cried Mark. “You, Pete—Bob—”

“Yes, sir; we couldn’t help it,” said the latter. “I was asking Buck Denham what it was, thinking it was one of them great tom cats; but he says it’s only a hy-he—something.”

“Hyhaena, my lad—hyhaena.”

“Yes, that’s it. Well, it made noise enough for t’other, didn’t it?”

“Made noise enough for t’other!” growled the driver. “You wait till you hear the real thing, and you won’t ask questions again like that.”

Dance took his pipe out of his mouth and opened his eyes, for he too had grown drowsy in the warmth of the fire, after his long day’s tramp.

“I ’eerd it too, and thought it must be a big howl a-howling. You have got howls out here, haven’t you, mate?”

“Oh, yes; plenty. But that’s what I said.”

The big driver having noted that the men had brought up a plentiful supply of wood sufficient to keep up the beast-scaring beacon, subsided heavily in the full light of the fire and began to fill his pipe.

“Now you two,” he said to the Hottentot and the foreloper, “just take a quiet walk round the bullocks, and then you can come back and smoke your pipe of peace.”

The Hottentot’s voice sounded very unpleasant and very clicky as he replied sharply, and though it was almost unintelligible Mark made out from it and the driver’s answers that Dunn Brown was already performing that duty.

“Oh,” said Buck, “then you needn’t go. That will be all right. Well, Illaka, aren’t you coming to sit down?” For the boys suddenly noticed the black shadowy figure of the guide glide into the firelight, his appearance being emphasised by a flash where the flame played upon the polished leaf-shaped blade of his spear.

The man nodded, shook his head, and disappeared again.

“What sort of fish do you think there are out in the river here?” asked Bob Bacon.

“I don’t know their names,” said Buck Denham quietly, as he went on filling his pipe very slowly; and the two boys sat down one on either side, pricking up their ears at the words “river” and “fish.”

The big driver leaned forward, drew out an incandescent piece of wood and quite ceremoniously held it to the bowl of his pipe.

“I don’t think you will find any trout,” he said, “like you have at home, but there’s plenty of fish there, I should say, just as there is lower down near Illakaree, and up here I should reckon there’s plenty to fish for.”

“Ah!” cried Mark eagerly, as he glanced round at the picturesque group seated in the full blaze of the fire, while the reflections played upon the dark edge of the forest, piercing the great overhanging branches from among which a few startled birds dashed out, winged their way round the circle of light and disappeared again.

“Look, Dean; isn’t it beautiful now!”

“Thought you wanted to go to sleep,” said his cousin.

“Not I! I leave that to you.”

“Yes,” continued the big driver, repeating his words, “and I should say there’s plenty up here to fish for.”

“I say, Buck, are there so many blacks about here, then?”

“Sometimes, sir.”

“And do they go fishing?”

“No, sir; they may do, but I don’t know as I ever saw a black go fishing. You’ve been to ’Stralia, Dan; do the black fellows out there fish much?”

“Much?” said Dan, showing his white teeth. “Yes, and hunt and knock the big kangaroos over with their nulla-nullas and boomerangs. Wittles are precious scarce there, and they have had a hard time of it to get enough grub, and I suppose that’s why they pick holes in the softy wood trees to get the big fat grubs out of them.”

“Ugh! Horrid!” said Dean.

“No, sir,” said Dean, smiling. “It don’t sound nice, but I know a little about cooking, and when them ’Stralian grubs are nicely cooked over the fire they are not to be sneezed at. There’s another thing too that’s very nice eating, baked or roasted, and that’s a locus’, and I shouldn’t wonder if you could find them out here, for they come in clouds up in the north and eat everything they find.”

“Well, don’t cook any for us, Dan,” said Mark.

“There’s no need, sir, with such a good supply of venison, as you gents call it, and game birds.”

“But I should like you to try your hand with the frying-pan and some fish.”

“You catch the fish, Mr Mark, sir, and leave it to me, and I’ll promise to fry it to rights, egged and crumbed and all.”

“What!” cried Dean.

“Well, no, that arn’t right, sir. Allers speak the truth, Dan, my boy, my grandmother used to say; and I will if I can. I could clean and scale and egg the fish to rights. We can get plenty of them comebacks’ eggs, but the crumbing of them would rather bother me, and I should have to do it with mealie flour.”

There was a short silence as the men sat smoking, and then Mark broke out with, “We will have a try for some fish; but who is it does the fishing up here, then, Buck?”

The big driver chuckled, and his eyes twinkled in the firelight.

“The whoppers, sir.”

“The whoppers!”

“Yes, sir; the crocs. I daresay if you went down by the river and listened just at daybreak you would hear them at it, flapping the river with their tails to stun the fish.”

“But that wouldn’t stun the fish,” cried Dean. “Oh, come, I say, what a traveller’s tale!” And Mark laughed as if agreeing with his cousin.

“Well, it may be a traveller’s tale, sir, but if you was there you’d see the fish come to the top upside down, I mean, white side up’ards, and the crocs shovelling them down as fast as you like. That’s all I know about it.”

“But is that true, Buck?”

“Yes, sir; true enough, for I have seen it. I wouldn’t tell you a tale like that without letting you know it was a bam-bam afterwards.”

“Ah, well, I’ll believe you, Buck. Ugh! Listen! What’s that? Did you ever hear anything so horrible in your life! Somebody’s being killed. There it is again! There!”

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