Oom Ignatious’s wealth consisted of his oxen and sheep and in what he managed to raise from his lands, on all of which he contrived to live comfortably without any waste or want, but without having much surplus over at the end of the year.
When Oom Ignatious heard that they were out for the purpose of killing something, he told Ignatious, junior, and Daniel to leave the work they were at and show them the haunts of certain oribe and steenbuck that they knew of.
Our party of greenhorns failed to bag anything in spite of repeated attempts. The young Boers showed them buck after buck quietly grazing in the long grass, but, standing or running, our young friends missed every shot. At last Keith said, ‘These young fellows are laughing at us, the bucks are too far away, you can’t hit them at such a distance.’ The young Boers, who knew a few words of English, understood this, but said never a word, and kept on making themselves as agreeable as possible to Keith with their scant knowledge of English.
At last, they were on their homeward way, no game in their bags, when suddenly Ignatious pulled Keith by the arm, enjoined silence, and pointed to a distant rise in the level plain and said,—
‘Do you see that oribe lying there against the butt?’
‘Where? I do not see anything but grass.’
‘There, don’t you see where I am pointing?’
‘No, old chappie, you do not come it over me, there is nothing there.’
‘Well, give me your gun.’ He had left his gun at home not to spoil the sport of their guests.
Keith gave him the gun with the remark that it was only a waste of ammunition. Ignatious knelt on one knee and rested his arm on the other, took aim and fired, something bounded in the air at the spot pointed out and fell down again and nothing more was seen. Ignatious quietly handed Keith his gun back and led the way towards the spot. Daniel was holding Steve’s gun in his hand admiring the workmanship of it, when, as they approached the spot, a buck was seen running from it. Everyone shouted, ‘There it goes,’ and ran in a slanting direction as if to intercept it when a shot was heard. Once more the buck bounding into the air several feet, fell down to rise no more. It was Daniel who had fired this time and killed the buck on the run. They went towards it, cut it up, took out the intestines and shouldered it, when Ignatious said, ‘Now let us go and get the other one.’