“That’ll do, old fellow,” said Emson, looking at his brother proudly. “You shall go, and I’ll take care of the stock and— Here! Look, look!”
This last in a tone of intense excitement, for a herd of zebra seemed suddenly to have risen out of the ground a couple of miles away, where nothing had been visible before, the beautifully striped, pony-like animals frisking and capering about, and pausing from time to time to browse on the shoots of the sparsely spread bushes. There were hundreds of them, and the brothers sat watching them for some minutes.
“Not what I should have chosen for food,” said Emson at last; “but they say they are good eating.”
“There’s something better,” said Dyke, pointing. “I know they are good.”
“Yes, we know they are good,” said Emson softly, as he slipped out of the saddle, Dyke following his example, and both sheltered themselves behind their horses.
“They haven’t noticed us,” said Emson, after a pause. “Mixed us up with the zebras, perhaps.”
“They’re coming nearer. Why, there’s quite a herd of them!” cried Dyke excitedly.
They stood watching a little group of springbok playing about beyond the herd of zebra—light, graceful little creatures, that now came careering down toward them, playfully leaping over each other’s backs, and proving again and again the appropriate nature of their name.
And now, as if quite a migration of animals was taking place across the plain, where for months the brothers had wandered rarely seeing a head, herd after herd appeared of beautiful deer-like creatures. They came into sight from the dim distance—graceful antelopes of different kinds, with straight, curved, or lyre-shaped horns; fierce-looking gnus, with theirs stumpy and hooked; ugly quaggas; and farthest off of all, but easily seen from their size, great, well-fed elands, ox-like in girth.
“I never saw anything like this, Joe,” said Dyke in a whisper.