“And would you both like to make that bag in one day, young gentlemen?” said Mr Rogers, smiling.
“Ah, now you are laughing at us, father,” said Dick. “Of course we don’t expect to shoot all those creatures, but we should like to try.”
“Yes,” added Jack; “that’s it, Dick. We should like to try.”
“Then you shall try,” said Mr Rogers, quietly; “on condition, mind, that you will neither of you do anything rash, but follow out either my advice or that of the General, whom I feel disposed to trust more and more.”
The country seemed to grow more romantic and grand the farther they trekked on away from civilisation, and they travelled now very few hundred yards without seeing something new and full of interest. Game was so abundant that there was no difficulty in keeping up a plentiful supply. Dinny even threatened to lose the frying-pan, for, as he said, he was frying steak morning, noon, and night; but as he loved dearly to fry one particularly juicy piece always for a gentleman named Dinny, there was not much fear of his keeping his word.
But somehow Dinny did not add to the harmony of the expedition. He proved himself again and again to be an arrant coward; and, coward-like, he tried to tyrannise over the weaker.
He was afraid of the General; and when, upon one or two occasions, he had quarrelled with Peter or Dirk, those gentlemen had displayed so much pugnacity that Dinny had prudently resolved to quarrel with them no more. He, however, made up for this by pouring out his virulence upon Coffee and Chicory, the dogs having been too much for him; and the Zulu boys bore it all in silence, but evidently meant to remember Dinny’s behaviour when the time came.
One day, soon after entering the game country, the General, who was on ahead alternately scanning the horizon and the ground, while the oxen slowly lumbered on behind, suddenly stopped, and began to examine some footprints in a marshy piece of ground which he had just told Dick to avoid.
“What is it?” said Dick, coming up.
“Look,” said the General, pointing to the great footprints.