“We shan’t do our thirty miles to-day,” said Renshaw, as they rode along. “We started too late. But that won’t greatly matter. We have plenty of time, and it’s better to keep the horses fresh than to rush them through.”
“So it is. But, I say, this place is like the Umtirara Valley, minus the bush and the greenness.”
It was. As they rode on, the desolate wildness of the defile increased. Rocky slopes sparsely grown with stunted bush, the usual cliff formation cleaving the sky-line. Boulders large and small studded the valley, lying like so many houses on the hillsides or piled up in unpleasantly obstructive profusion, right along the line of march. Of animal life there was little enough. Here and there an armour-plated tortoise stalking solemnly among the stones, or a large bird of prey circling overhead—but of game, no sign. As the sun mounted higher and higher, pouring his rays into the defile as though focussed through a burning glass, the heat tried Sellon severely.
“This is awful,” he growled, for the fiftieth time, mopping his steaming face. “Is it going to be like this all the way?”
“It may be. But we shall have to do most of our moving about at night. We can take it easy now and off-saddle, and trek on again towards sundown. Until we actually begin our search, I know the ground by heart. Come now, Sellon, you must keep up your determination. It’s beastly trying, I know, for an unseasoned chap; but think of the end.”
“I believe I’ll get a sunstroke first,” was the dejected reply, as the speaker flung himself wearily on the ground.
“Not a bit of it. Here, have a drop of liquor—but you’d better take it weak, or it’ll do more harm than good.” And getting out a pannikin Renshaw poured in a little of the contents of his flask, judiciously diluting it from the water-skin slung across the pack-horse.
This water-skin, by the way, was an ingenious contrivance of his own, and of which he was not a little proud. Like its Eastern prototype—upon which it was modelled—it consisted of the dressed skin of a good-sized Angora kid—one of the legs serving for the spout.
“Not a bad dodge, eh?” acquiesced Renshaw, in response to his companion’s remark. “The water has a leathery taste, I admit, but it’s better than none at all. I hit upon the idea when I first began these expeditions. Something of the kind was absolutely essential. Trekking with waggons you carry the ordinary vaatje—a small drum-shaped keg—slung between the wheels, but it’s an inconvenient thing to load up on a horse—in fact, the second attempt I made the concern got loose and rolled the whole way down a mountain-side—of course, splintering to atoms. Besides, this thing holds more and keeps the water cooler. I came near dying of thirst that time, being three nights and two days without a drop of anything; for this is a mighty dry country, I needn’t tell you.”
“What if the whole yarn should turn out moonshine after all?” said Sellon, with the despondency of a thoroughly exhausted man. “There’s one thing about it that looks fishy. How could what’s his name—Greenway—wounded as he was, fetch your place in two or three days? Why, it’ll take us nearly a week to do it—if not quite.”