“I had not left the Masarwa half an hour, when I suddenly, to my intense surprise, cut the spoor of a wagon running pretty well east and west, and going westward. It was not fresh, but at the same time not very old either. It might have been a month or two old at most. ‘Now,’ thought I, ‘what in the mischief does this mean?’ Very few hunters use this veldt. I knew Khama had sent no wagons that way this season, and the only white man in front of us this year was Dirk Starreberg, one of the few Dutch hunters to whom Khama gave permission to hunt in his veldt. Starreberg’s wagon it could only be. And yet it struck me as strange that Dirk, whom I knew well—for he was a noted interior hunter—should be trekking in this veldt. He was, I knew, bound for the Victoria Falls. Probably, like ourselves, enticed by the unwonted water supply and the possibility of a slap at the elephants, he had turned off somewhere between Nata River and Daka, and pushed across for the Chobé. Thus reasoning, I turned my horse’s head, and, with the westering sun now on my right flank, struck homeward for the wagon. I rode on for half a mile, and then came another strange thing. As I crossed an open glade I saw coming towards me the figure of a man. I knew in a moment who it was. The slouching walk, the big, burly form, the vast red beard, the rifle carried—as Dirk always carried his—by the muzzle end, with the stock poised behind his shoulder—it was none but Dirk Starreberg himself. But there was something amiss with him. He looked worn and troubled, almost distraught, it seemed to me, at that distance; and he gazed neither to right nor left of him, but passed hurriedly and very swiftly in front of me at a distance of about eighty paces.
“‘Hallo! Dirk!’ I shouted. ‘Allemaghte! war loup jij? Wacht een bitje, Dirk!’ (Almighty! where are you off to? Wait a little, Dirk!) To my utter astonishment, the man took not the slightest notice, but passed on. I became indignant, and yelled, ‘Dirk, Dirk, have you no manners? It’s me, George Kenstone. I want you. Stop!’ Still the man passed on. In another moment he had reached the bush again. He turned now, beckoned to me with his right hand, and, in another instant, had disappeared into the low forest.
“I was extremely annoyed, and after staring like a fool for a second or two, struck in spurs rather sharply and galloped after him. I was not three seconds in reaching the bush where he had entered, but, to my surprise, Dirk had vanished. I searched hither and thither, shouted—ay, swore—but still no Dirk. I came back, at length, to the point where I had last seen the Boer. Surprise Number 3. There was my own spoor as plain as a pikestaff in the red sand, but of Dirk Starreberg not one trace of spoor was to be seen!
“Now, spoor, as you all know, is a thing that never lies. I had seen Dirk cross the clearing and enter the bush at this point. Where were his tracks? I got off my horse and hunted carefully every bit of the way across the glade where I had seen Dirk pass. I am a reasonable good veldt-man, but—so help me God!—I never could find one trace of the man’s spoor, this way or that. I rubbed my eyes. It was incomprehensible. I searched again and again, carefully and methodically, with the same result. There was always my own and my horse’s spoor, but no one else’s.
“By this time I was not a little bothered. There must be some infernal mystery which I could not fathom. My eyesight had never yet failed me. It was broad daylight, and I was neither asleep, nor dreaming, nor drunk. An old childish superstition crept for an instant upon my mind, to be instantly cast aside. And yet the flesh, even of grown manhood, is weak. I remember distinctly that I shivered, blazing hot as was the afternoon. The bush seemed very still and lonely, and I am bound to say it suddenly struck me it was time to move for the wagon. I got on to my good nag, walked him away, and presently set him into a brisk canter, which I only once slackened till I made the camp, just at sundown, a couple of hours later.
“I told Angus what I had seen. He laughed, and told me I had evidently missed the spoor, although he admitted that it was strange that Dirk had made no sign when I hailed him; and next morning we moved on rapidly, picked up the meat of the dead giraffe, and then a little later struck the wagon-spoor I had found yesterday. This we followed briskly until four o’clock p.m., when we came upon an old outspan, and discovery Number 4.
“Here was a good-sized water-pit in limestone formation. There were the remains of the camp-fire; and it was evident, from several indications, that the wagon, whosever it was, had stood at least two days at this spot. The camel-thorn trees (Giraffe-acacias) grew pretty thickly all around, and there was a good deal of bush, and altogether it was a sequestered, silent spot. Lying by the largest of the dead fires was an object that instantly quickened our interest in the mystery we were unravelling—the skeleton of a man, clean-picked by the foul vultures, but apparently untouched by jackals or hyaenas. There were still the tattered remains of clothing upon it, and one velschoen—a Boer velschoen—upon the right foot. I turned over the poor bleached framework to try and discover some inkling of its end. As I did so, out pattered from the skull on to the sand a solid Martini-Henry bullet, slightly flattened on one side of its apex, manifestly from impact with some bone it had encountered—probably a cheek-bone. A closer scrutiny revealed a big hole in rear of the skull just behind the right ear.
“‘By George!’ exclaimed Angus, who was bending over me, ‘there’s been foul play here. That shot was fired at pretty close quarters.’
“I nodded, and at that instant my Masarwa, who had been searching about near us, picked up and brought me a bunch of long red hair.
“‘So help me God!’ I could not help exclaiming, ‘that’s from Dirk Starreberg’s beard, for any money! He has been murdered here—that’s certain. If it was an accident, they would have buried him. The question is, who is the murderer?’