“The dogs shall never bring their stink-machines across my land.”
“What can you do then, my poor Poppa? They will bring them here, and you can’t do anything. You can’t shoot them with a gun, or throw them with a stone.”
“I will fight them with the law—if it takes my last pound,” muttered Nick.
“What’s the good? They will win in the end, Governments always do,” said Chrissie who had been to school at Paarl, and knew a few things.
“We’ll see. I’ll go to Piquetberg to-morrow and talk to old Frickie de Villiers. He’s a slim kerel, and ought to be able to vernuck them if anyone can. What is the use of my tin full of money if I can’t get the better of the dogs?”
“Ach toch! What’s the good of fretting your blood then, Pa? Let them make their old railway. We shall see something then, but.”
“Allemagtage! Are you a child of mine?” the old man roared. His vague eyes were suddenly fierce and full of fire. But Chrissie was not of the kidney to be intimidated even by her father. She turned away with a trill of laughter, finger on lip, to listen to a bird that had just perched on a branch of the kameeldorn and was calling out in three high insistent notes:
“Bock-bock-mackeerie! Bock-bock-mackeerie!”
It was the South African whip-poor-will whose cry heralds the arrival of strangers.
“The bock-mackeerie!” cried Chrissie ecstatically.