From Veldt Camp Fires

by H. A. Bryden

Truey had seen with sharp eyes Tobias De la Rey spurring across the flat in the final sharp canter up to the house. She had changed her dirty print frock for a stuff one, had brushed her dark hair, tied a pink ribbon to the thick single plait that fell down her back, and had even washed her face and hands. In truth Gertruey had a soft corner in her heart for Tobias. After all he was her devoted admirer—she knew that. And then he was a first-rate hunter, a good veldt man, who had killed many an elephant, and had met death fairly and squarely time after time these eight years past. And indeed, he was not so ill looking; there were few good-looking bachelors within a radius of fifty miles of Vogelstruisfontein, and Tobias was no worse than his neighbours. He was poor, certainly, but he was less poor than he used to be, and she had land and stock of her own—or would have when she came of age.

Truey came in, then, passably well-dressed and on good terms with herself, and there was quite a pleased look in her honest brown eyes as they caught Tobias’s first glance. Tant’ Joanna viewed her niece’s little personal preparations for the visitor with something very like disapproval, and Truey, whose countenance had, under her aunt’s dragon-like gaze, assumed a fitting humility, was soon dismissed to the kitchen to hasten on preparation for “middagmaal.” During the long afternoon, before Tobias saddled up and rode for home, he had the opportunity of exchanging but two or three sentences with Truey alone. Still those sentences carried consolation. Tobias was a terrible coward with women, but he had in sheer desperation ventured to remark that Tant’ Joanna meant her niece to marry a rich man, and that no doubt he should find her settled with her own husband on his return. Tracy had answered stoutly, with reddening cheeks, that she should have a good deal to say to that, and that for her part Tobias might be very sure she should not be married before he returned again. There was something in the girl’s voice and look that gave the faint-hearted Tobias fresh hope, and he said hastily—for he heard Tant’ Joanna coming in from the stoep,—“Then you will wait, Truey?” And Truey answered under her breath, yet very steadfastly, “Yes. I will wait, Tobias.” And there was a very warm pressure of the hand between these two—far different from the usual lifeless handshake of the Boers—as they said farewell.

Tobias climbed briskly to his saddle at four o’clock, touched his nag with the off spur to make him show himself a little, and from his safe eminence fired his parting shot at Vrouw Terblans: “Farewell, Tant’, I shall be back in twelve months a thousand pound better man, with the waggon loaded up with ivory.”

“Ach! Tobias, man, you will be too late,” rejoined the huge dame from the stoep, in her sharp voice. “Too late, I tell you. Never mind, good luck to you, and farewell.”

But behind her, as she spoke these words, stood Truey, shaking her head, and her head-shake and the look in her kind eyes, just now dim with tears, were consolations good enough and reassuring enough for Tobias De la Rey as he rode off.

It was a glorious mellow evening, that, as Tobias galloped home in a frame of mind not often usual to one of his sluggish breed. If he had killed a brace of elephants, with teeth averaging fifty pounds apiece, he could not have felt more lively. Long, long afterwards did Tobias recall that shining evening as he rode home from Vogelstruisfontein. Never had the grass veldt looked more fair, the bush more green, the distant mountains more ruddy with the flush of sunset; never had life itself seemed more worth the living.

Leaving a kinsman to look after his farm and stock, De la Rey trekked next morning for the far distant hunting grounds that were his goal. A year later he and his shooting-fellow, Klaas Erasmus, a first-rate hunter like himself, were outspanned with their waggons in a wild region, unknown even to the Trek Boers in their wanderings, towards the Cubangwe River. It was plainly apparent, from the look of their outfits, that the hunters had had a very rough time of it during these twelve months. Their waggons were worn and battered; the tents had long since been torn to shreds by the thorns and were now replaced by the hides of game. Their combined stud—they had started with seven—had now dwindled to a pair of jaded-looking nags, one of which was De la Rey’s old salted schimmel “Blaauwbok,” now looking, if possible, more gaunt and antique than ever. The two men had had no great luck hitherto. It had taken them four good months to reach the elephant country, and after eight months’ hunting they had shot and traded between them little more than fifteen hundred pounds weight of ivory. They had determined, therefore, to hunt for a second season. Twice or thrice in the unhealthy season just ended had they been each very near to death from fever and dysentery, and both looked yellow and pulled down. Yet in the last few days, luck had turned; they had stumbled by chance upon a veldt thick with elephants; they had slain three yesterday and were now hot upon the spoor of an immense troop, which on the coming morning they hoped to attack.

At seven o’clock, having supped and smoked their pipes, they turned into their waggons and slept. Hunters, and especially Dutch hunters, rise early, and seek their kartels betimes, after a hard day in the veldt. An hour before dawn they were stirring, coffee was drunk, some food swallowed, the horses were saddled up, the rifles got out, cartridge belts buckled on; the hunters mounted, and with their native spoorers, set out upon the trail just as the light was breaking through the white mist of early morning.

Three Bushmen spoored for them, and besides these, two native servants, fair shots and reliable hunters, carried rifles and accompanied the Boers on foot.

Hour after hour the keen Bushmen held upon the broad trail of the retreating herd, upon whose skirts they had now been hanging these three days past. It was a mighty troop—as near as could be judged by the trail left, at least 150 strong. The sun rose and rose and beat hotly down upon the thick bush in which the party were now involved. Hour after hour they pressed steadily on, and still the big troop kept its lead. At two o’clock, in the hottest, weariest hour of afternoon, they began the ascent of a steepish hill, up which the elephants had climbed in their retreat. Their horses were showing signs of collapse. It was a matter of absolute necessity that they should off-saddle for half an hour and give them a much needed rest. The spoorers, too, wanted rest and a drink from their calabashes and a welcome pinch of snuff—that ineffable blessing to the worn and jaded black man. While they off-saddled and the horses rested and fed a little, the native hunters were in deep consultation; the Bushmen, especially, were jabbering in their queer inarticulate language—in whispers, of course—and their gestures indicated that something very exciting was stirring in their minds. Presently Lukas, the Griqua, who carried a gun, came to the two Boers and translated. What the Bushmen wanted to point out was this. Below the hill, on the farther side, lay an immense marsh, which was just now in its most treacherous condition. A week before it was under water and no elephants would have faced it. A week later, under the influence of the fierce sun, it would have dried sufficiently to bear the weight even of an elephant. If, said the Bushmen, the elephants, which were now assuredly nearing the summit of the hill, browsing slowly as they climbed, could be driven down the steep into the marsh they would be hopelessly embogged. The big troop, the Bushmen said (they knew every herd of game in that vast veldt, just as the average Kaffir knows his own cattle), had been driven far out of their own feeding grounds and this part of the country was strange to them. The two Boers listened with a fierce intensity to this absorbing scheme. They pulled at their beards, knit their brows, and leaped hungrily at each word as it came from the mouth of Lukas, the Griqua. Here was the chance of a lifetime, and they knew it.