Chapter Forty Four.
Elephants in Sight.
In spite of their searching, the baboons were not seen till camp was being moved again to cross the ridge and descend into the plain, when the vicious little animals made so desperate an attack upon the party, throwing stones with such accuracy, that they had to be treated to a volley, and then to a second, before the troop, quite a hundred strong, took to flight; and the dogs killed the wounded left upon the ground, but only at the expense of some vicious bites from the dying apes.
They were fired at with no little compunction, for mingled with their dog-like aspect there was a great deal that was terribly human, and after shooting one of the largest and fiercest, Dick said he felt as if he had committed a murder.
It was, however, a work of necessity, and nothing but a vigorous attack sufficed to drive the malicious little monsters away.
“Anywhere near the Boer settlements these creatures do infinite mischief,” Mr Rogers said, “watching for, and destroying the lambs to a terrible extent.”
Days of weary trekking across plains before they came into pool-strewn land, where the footprints of buffalo were here and there obliterated by the monstrous round track left by the elephant.
And now for the last time before beginning the return journey they formed camp, and prepared for some of the most serious part of their hunt.