"You are a good one, I must say!" exclaimed Oscar in disgust. "Why didn't you come out there and help me? You had time enough to shoot a dozen buffaloes if you had had any 'get up' about you!"
"I—I didn't know you wanted any help," stammered McCann. "Didn't you tell us to look out for ourselves? I supposed you would come straight to the wagon, and that the buffalo would follow you. That's the reason I got up here."
"Do the words 'Bring a rifle out here and shoot this buffalo' sound like 'Look out for yourselves'?" demanded Oscar angrily. "If you are an old hunter, as you claim to be, you ought to have known that I would not lead a frantic beast like that into camp, to knock the wagon about and gore the oxen and horses! And if you misunderstood me, how does it come that the Kaffir didn't misunderstand me, too? He came out there and helped me all he could with his spears. He didn't kill the buffalo, I am sorry to say, but he showed his good will, and I shall remember him for it. Come down and dish up my supper, and see that Little Gray has an extra measure of mealies. If I wasn't so far away from the settlements I would turn him adrift to-morrow," added Oscar to himself as he dismounted and turned his horse over to the Kaffir, who just then came into camp. "He has not yet earned the fifteen pounds advance I gave him, but I would rather lose that amount of money than have such a coward about me."
"He's getting almost too bossy for a boy," soliloquized McCann as he descended from his perch. "Who would think to look at him that there was so much in him? That was the first buffalo he ever saw, and yet he was as cool as any old hunter. If that is the way he is going to behave I don't want to act as his after-rider, and I won't either, for the first thing I know he will get me into trouble. I think I know a way to make him go back, and if I don't succeed in it I shall desert him. I am not going to risk my life for twenty-five pounds. And if I go I shan't go empty-handed. Mark that, Mr. Preston."
"Say, Thompson!" shouted Oscar from the wagon, "take that as a slight reward for your courage. When you want more let me know. You are the only one among them that has pluck enough to face a mouse."
As Oscar said this he handed out a pound plug of navy tobacco, which the Kaffir received with joyful smiles. The Hottentots looked at it with envious eyes, and even McCann's mouth watered. He had been on half rations almost ever since he left Zurnst.
CHAPTER XXI. AN AFRICAN CONCERT.
Oscar was so disheartened over the loss of the buffalo, and so angry at the boastful McCann for the arrant cowardice he had exhibited, that he did not at all enjoy his supper.