“My boundary ridge.”
“Your boundary ridge! An’ a euphorby tree, and a sprinkling of white thorn acacias, with the gum drops glistenin’ on the rough bark, and a few grey stones all covered with moss and a stretch of grey veld. Go ’long; there’s more than that under the curtain of the dark, for if there weren’t why would you an’ me sit here and look away off, an’ look an’ look, as ef behind the curtain was all the mysteries of the unknown world. The dark makes a wonderful difference.”
“So it does—when you’re five miles from home and hear the ‘gurr’ of a tiger.”
“Sonny, I’ve downed that black tiger.”
“You have!”
“That’s so. Ole Abe Pike has come out on top—and soon’s I skinned him I lit out to tell you the news. You see it was my wits against his. Traps was no good, so I determined to set my skin against his and trust to the ole gun. I calculated to tackle him right close up to his lair.”
“In the kloof?”
“Eweh! in the dark of the big kloof, where it’s that still you can hear the sap moving in the trees. You see that crittur was more’n ordinary cunning, and he’d seen how he was feared, so he’d settle it down to a certainty that no man would ever dare tempt death near his sleepin’ place. Therefore, though deadly risky, the best plan would be to go to that very spot. Next thing was to give him a good feed far away—and yet not too far. Ef the kill was too far he wouldn’t come back to his roost, and ef it was too near he wouldn’t eat before returning. So I built a little bush kraal near the kloof an got a brandzickt goat from Ned Amos to turn in.”
“Why not have tied the goat up in the kloof?”
“No good, sonny, with an ’xper’enced tiger. He’d a suspected a plant, ’cos his understanding ’ud tell him that goats don’t grow in kloofs. The kraal he would take as a piece of man’s foolishness. Before this I filed down a whole sixpence, and the filings I melted into a good round bullet, with some clean lead. Two charges I put in behind that bullet, and seed that the powder was well up in the nipple with the shiniest cap well pressed down. Then I killed a stink-cat—I’ll tell you why afterwards. I got the goat down to the kraal an hour before sun-down, and then I slipped into the kloof, treading like a shadder, with the bleat of the old billy buck calling loud. I pulled up, an’ waited till that ole man baboon, who had watched all proceedings, gave me the sign that the Black Sam was on the move. I felt my way on up to his lair under a shelving rock at the foot of the precipice that hems in the kloof on the top side. It was that dark I couldn’t see my hand, and I knew at once my plan would land me with a split throttle if I waited for his coming back. I was that skeered, too, with the whisperin’ in the trees, that I was just making ready to run when I see a firefly dodging around.”