The two looked at each other, and then away over the plain. Skinning and cutting up was not exactly amusing.
"All right; I'll stay," said Venning.
"Each in his turn," said the hunter. "Come along, Compton;" and they went off, as Venning turned up his shirt-sleeves.
It was hard work, this cutting up, but Muata was a master at the job, and Venning learnt his lesson thoroughly.
The great hide was taken off in one piece without a slit; then long strips of meat were cut off and hung over the branches of a tree. When the rest of the meat had been stripped off, they packed it all away in the hide, slung the bundle to a sapling, and, with each end of the pole on a shoulder, they slowly carried the whole to the camp. Venning hoped that his labours were over; but they had only completed one task. They had now to build a scaffolding on which to hang the strips, after each had been well peppered to keep off the flies, for the drying and smoking. This took another slice out of the day; and when Venning had washed in the river, and cooked and eaten his buffalo-steak, he resigned himself to the study of insects in place of the pursuit of game, while Muata, who had melted down the fat from the kidneys, sat and rubbed the oil into his limbs till his skin shone.
"Have you seen many buffalo?" asked Venning, with a keen eye on a bit of crooked stick that had seemed to move.
"Many."
"And you understand their ways?"
"I have watched as you watch the stick that is not a stick."
Venning picked up an insect—a strange creature which had adapted itself to its surroundings by pretending to be a dried twig.