“Dig one up, then, and I’ll cut it into eighteen inch-long baits.”
“I didn’t bring a spade with me, old fellow,” said Drew, smiling.
“Humph! Why didn’t you?”
“Same reason that you didn’t bring out some worms in your kit. I say, are you loaded?”
“Of course. You asked me before.”
Drew Lennox said no more, but glanced up-stream and down-stream, after starting his bait once again upon its swim. Then, after watching the rings uncoil till the line was tight, he swept the edge of the opposite bank some fifty yards away, carefully searching the clumps of trees and bushes, partly in search of a lurking enemy or spying Kaffir, taught now by experience always to be on the alert, and partly in the faint hope of catching a glimpse of something in the shape of game such as would prove welcome in the famine that he and his comrades were experiencing.
But, as he might have known in connection with game, their coming would have been quite sufficient to scare off the keen eared and eyed wild creatures; and he glanced down at his line again, thinking in a rather hopeless way that he and his friend might just as well have stayed in camp at the laager they had fortified with so much care.
His next act was to open the flap of his belt holster and carefully withdraw the revolver which now rarely left his side. After a short examination of the mechanism, this came in for a good rub and polish from the handkerchief before it was replaced.
“Nearly had one,” cried his companion, after a snatch at the line he held.
“Didn’t get a bite, did you?”