“I wonder that Dinny don’t work harder. The General says this part swarms with lions; and they’ll be down upon us before we’ve done if he don’t make haste.”
Dinny seemed to be turned for the moment into stone, at the bare mention of the word lion; but directly after he was toiling away with feverish haste, and in quite a state of excitement, bullying Coffee and Chicory for not bringing in more dead wood for the fire.
By dint of all working hard, however, a satisfactory place was contrived, into which, after a good long feed, and a hearty drink of fresh water from a bubbling stream, the bullocks and horses were shut, the horses having a division of their own, where they would be safe from the horns of their friends as well as the teeth and claws of their enemies. Then the blazing fire in front of the waggon was utilised for cooking purposes, and buffalo steaks and thick rich soup from Dinny’s big pot soon restored the losses felt by the little party in their arduous evening toil.
The waggon was on the very edge of the forest, and a couple of trees stood out on either side, spreading their branches over it as shelter, while the ruddy fire that was being steadily fed to get it into a good glow, with a bright blaze free from the blinding smoke emitted by burning wood, seemed to turn the waggon and trees into gold.
“I’ll take the first watch, my boys,” said Mr Rogers, who, after their hearty supper, had read his sons a lecture about the necessity for care in hunting, “for,” said he, “but for the dogs your lives would certainly have been sacrificed.”
“Yes, father, we’ll be more careful; but how is it the dogs have not come back?”
“They overtook and pulled down one of the buffaloes,” said Mr Rogers. “They will glut themselves, and, after a long sleep, take up our trail and follow us. I dare say they’ll be here to-morrow.”
The boys, who were fagged out, gladly crept into the waggon, the last thing they saw being Dinny putting some pieces of buffalo flesh and half a pail of water in the big pot, so as to let it stew by the fire all night. Then they drew up the canvas curtains of their tent-bed as they called it, leaving Mr Rogers and Peter to keep up the fire, and to call them in four hours’ time, the boys having begged that they might keep one of the watches together.
They were fast asleep directly, and in five minutes’ time—so Jack declared—Mr Rogers aroused them to relieve guard.
“Come, boys,” he said, “be quick. Do you know how long you’ve been asleep?”