It was a hard task that skinning, but the long legs acted as levers when he wanted to turn the creature over, and the busily employed time skipped away, quite three hours having elapsed before Dick and Jack rode up.
“Why, what a magnificent skin, father,” cried Dick, as he stood admiring the creamy drab, splashed and spotted with great patches of a rich yellowish brown. “What a monster, and what a height!”
“Yes,” said Mr Rogers. “But I’ve had enough of this, boys. The great gentle beast looked so piteous and appealing at me that I feel ashamed of having killed it. You must shoot one a-piece I suppose, but after that let’s get to the savage animals again. One feels to have done a good deed in ridding the country of one of those brutes. Did you both kill yours?”
“No, father,” they cried in chorus; and after helping to cut off the marrow-bones of the great beast to carry home, for a roast, the marrow being esteemed a delicacy; the heavy skin was mounted before Mr Rogers, and a couple of marrow-bones a-piece proving a load, they rode slowly for the camp, Mr Rogers listening to the account of his boys’ mishaps, both showing traces of having been in the wars.
Evening was coming on fast, and their progress was necessarily slow; but it was not until it had turned quite dark, that the fact became evident that they had lost their way out there on that great wild.
They drew rein and looked around, but not a single familiar landmark was in sight. On the contrary, all loomed up strange and peculiar.
To have gone on meant only wearying themselves in vain, and perhaps an unpleasant encounter with lions; so they made straight for the nearest patch of wood, secured their horses, and rapidly hacked off and collected enough wood for a fire, to do duty in a threefold way—giving them warmth, safety from prowling beasts, and cooking the huge marrow-bones, which were soon set down to roast, and formed, with the biscuits they carried, no despicable meal.
Such nights passed by a blazing fire on the edge of a wood sound very romantic, but they lose their attraction when tried. Hot as Africa is by day, icy winds often blow by night, and they will freeze the hunter inside the shelter of a tent; the coolness then of a night without shelter can be understood. The fire burnt one side, but, as Jack said, without you made the fire all round you, it was no good, and that they could not do.
No one felt disposed to sleep, so they sat and warmed themselves as best they could, drawing the great giraffe skin round them for warmth. Then they talked till they were weary, and afterwards got up to pat and comfort their horses.
It was very wearisome that night, but free from adventure; and the moment it was light they mounted and rode to the nearest eminence, from which they made out land-marks which enabled them to find their way back to camp, where the General and his two boys were missing, having gone out, as they said in their trouble, because Mr Rogers and the boys had not returned—“to look for Boss;” their joy knowing no bounds when they came back in a couple of hours, without finding those they had sought, and seeing them waiting there.