From Veldt Camp Fires

by H. A. Bryden

Meanwhile the two hunters rode steadily upon the spoor of the hartebeest. It was a good troop, and although the chase might be a long one the Boers were so accustomed to bagging the game they followed that they looked confidently to a dead buck or two before afternoon. Surely, they thought, as half-hour after half-hour they followed steadily upon the footprints, now clear in the firm sand, now amid the long grass, hardly to be distinguished, even by the wonderful instinct of these sons of the veldt, the hartebeest will presently stand and rest, or feed again. But no. The antelopes had secured a good start and had long since cantered at that deceptive pace of theirs clean out of sight; and the tell-tale spoor indicated, as mile after mile was reeled off, that they were still moving briskly and that their point was some far distant one.

The two ponies, rough and unkempt, and angular as they were, were perhaps in better condition than the rest of the camp—whether human beings or stock—put together. Their well-being was absolutely necessary to the safety of the party; without them game would be desperately hard to come at; they had, therefore, been fed pretty regularly on Kaffir corn, and still retained condition. Moreover, they came of that hardy Cape breed which produces some of the toughest, most courageous, and most serviceable horseflesh in the world. The nags were all right, and hour after hour they cantered steadily on.

It was now twelve o’clock, the sun was desperately hot, they had ridden nearly five hours, with but one short off-saddle, and it was absolutely necessary to give the horses another rest. Father and son, therefore, off-saddled at a patch of thin bush, knee-haltered the nags, which at once rolled and began to feed, and themselves rested under the scant shadow of the brush. For nearly an hour Arend smoked in silence. Meanwhile the lad lay prone upon his stomach, gazing straight in front of him in the direction in which the game still headed. Out there now rose before the two hunters, swelling solidly from the plain of yellowish-green grass, the low chain of hill, which, as they viewed it from the waggon-box that morning, had seemed so far away. But they had ridden eighteen good miles since breakfast; the hill stood now but four miles away, and each cleft, krantz, and precipice of its scarred and weather-worn sides, each dark patch of bush and undergrowth, now showed plain and naked before their eyes.

“That’s where the hartebeest have made for, father,” said the lad, at last; “shall we catch them there, think you?”

“Yes,” answered the big Boer, cocking his tattered, broad-brimmed hat yet more over his eyes, and looking very hard at the line of hill. “They’ve gone in there, right enough, Hermannus; in by that dark kloof yonder. But whether the kloof leads right through the hill to the country beyond I can’t tell. If it does, we shall have a long hunt and be out all night on the spoor; if it doesn’t we shall catch them in a trap, I hope. Maghte! But my stomach aches for a bit of good flesh, and your mother and the children want soup and meat badly, poor souls. Fetch in the horses, lad. They’ve had rest, and we must push on again.”

Hermannus rose, walked out on to the veldt, drove up the nags, and once more they saddled up and mounted. They went very warily now, looking keenly along the base of the little range of kopjes, to see that the hartebeests were not feeding quietly among the scattered bush that grew about the lower slopes. But no; the spoor still held straight ahead, and in half an hour they were at the entrance of the kloof. It was a narrow ravine, which appeared to have been violently rent by nature right into the heart of the hills, but which, doubtless, the action of water, erosion, and ages of time had worn slowly and with infinite quiet, century after century, deep into the hard rocks. After two hundred yards of this narrow ravine, the kloof suddenly turned at a right angle and then broadened out into an open valley about half a mile long. The spoor had told the hunters very plainly that the antelopes had entered the kloof. But it was not yet evident why they had travelled all that way thither. Father and son now settled upon a plan of action. It was clear, upon looking up the valley, that no exit was to be found at the far end. If, however, they rode straight up the kloof they would probably drive the game right over the hills, where to follow would be difficult and shooting not easy.

“I cannot make out why the buck have come in here,” whispered Van Driel, meditatively, as they stood beside their horses, and, well screened by bushes, gazed up the valley. “It’s not like hartebeest ground at all. There must be water or new grass, or some such attraction at the head of the kloof. We will leave the nags here fastened to the bush.” He took up a handful of sand and let it fall lightly through his fingers. “The wind is right enough, it blows fair down the kloof. There is plenty of cover along the bottom here. If we leave the nags and creep very quietly among the bush we shall probably get a fair shot or two each. The game here is seldom hunted, and as far as we can judge the place is never visited by man. Come along!”

The two crept slowly up the valley, moving, from bush to bush, with infinite care and caution, their soft, home-made velschoons of water-buck hide making little or no noise as they pressed forward. Now and again they crossed the neat spoor of the antelopes, imprinted deep in the smooth, red, sandy soil. Then they looked at one another and their eyes gleamed responsively. It was clear that the game had fed slowly and carelessly towards the head of the kloof; their rifles were loaded and cocked; the time of action was very near.

In a quarter of an hour, or a little more, they were drawing very close to the end of the valley; the bush grew thicker, which was all the better for their purpose. With extraordinary pains they picked their way, the spoor still guiding them. Suddenly Arend Van Driel, stretching back his hand in warning, dropped from his stooping walk down upon one knee. Hermannus instantly followed his example. Van Driel motioned his son very softly forward, and, creeping up, the lad saw through a small opening in the bush what had arrested his father’s progress.

It was a glorious sight, truly. The end of the valley, bounded on three sides by the steep and rough hill, lay before them. The ground was nearly open, and in the centre of the rich, dark red soil flowed, over a rocky bed, a sparkling stream of the clearest water, which issued from the hillside to the right, and disappeared, apparently, beneath a litter of rocks on the left. Close to the stream, within sixty to eighty yards of where the hunters were concealed, were the hartebeests, most of them lying down; some few standing with heads down in sleepy fashion; others, again, plucking lazily at some green young grass, which here and there masked the good red soil. Only one of them, a knowing-looking old cow, was really on the alert. The long, black faces, corrugated horns, and bright bay coats of the big antelopes united, with the fair surrounding scenery, to form a striking picture of feral life.