“Few people ever have in these days, old fellow,” said Emson, as he feasted his eyes. “This must be like it used to be in the old times before so much hunting took place. It shows what an enormous tract of unexplored land there must be off to the north-west.”
“And will they stay about here now?”
“What for? To starve? Why, Dyke, lad, there is nothing hardly to keep one herd. No; I daresay by this time to-morrow there will hardly be a hoof. They will all have gone off to the north or back to the west. It is quite a migration.”
“I suppose they take us for some kind of six-legged horse, or they would not come so near.”
“At present. Be ready; they may take flight at any moment, and we must not let our fresh-meat supply get out of range.”
“’Tisn’t in range yet,” said Dyke quietly.
“No, but it soon will be.”
“What are you going to shoot at?—the springbok, and then mount and gallop after them and shoot again, like the Boers do?”
“What! with big antelope about? No, boy; we want our larder filling up too badly. Look: impalas; and at those grand elands.”
“I see them; but they must be a mile away.”