Chapter Twelve.
Pursuit.
“The Kafirs have walked off the whole of the bonte span and three horses,” went on Brian.
“Is that all?” I said, intensely relieved.
“That all? Man alive! but those are our best trek oxen. A full span of sixteen. ‘That all’!”
“Oh, I don’t mean it that way. My first thought was that your father was worse. You know how seedy he was this evening.”
“I see!” was the answer. “No, he’s no worse—fast asleep, in fact. I wouldn’t disturb him about this, but—Holt, we must go after them at once.”
“Go after who?” interrupted Trask, sitting up and yawning, for we had been talking in a low tone and he had not awoke at once. “What’s the row, anyhow?”
Brian repeated what he had just been telling me. “The cheek of the brutes!” he went on. “Mind, this thing was done in broad daylight. I suppose they thought that as it was Sunday none of us would be about. Dumela came upon the fresh spoor as he was out looking after that sick cow down in the kloof by Aasvogel Krautz. They simply collected them, and swept off the lot. In broad daylight, too.”