The boys turned to fly, but their wings had been scorched by the heat and would hardly carry them.
So they took to their heels and ran, pursued at a safe distance by the cowardly Bushmen, who fired flights of poisoned arrows at them.
Two of these arrows wounded Tibbs.
“Kiddi, I’m—I’m hit!” he groaned. “We must reach a river, somehow, and wash out the poison.”
Kiddiwee helped him along as best he could. And after travelling many weary miles, they came at last to a mighty river.
The river was red with the mud washed into it by numerous streams, and large trees floated past, torn from the river banks, for it was in flood.
But the two boys were so hot and weary, that, heedless of danger, they plunged in, and were carried rapidly away on the stream.