He did not draw back or even hesitate when the fore-loper led him up to the place where the specimens were lying.
He pointed one of his long horns at the dead hyenas, glared at them out of the corner of his eye and bellowed defiantly, but that was all.
After refreshing themselves with a drink of water—which tasted as though it had been over a slow fire all day—Oscar and the Kaffir set to work to load the drag, Johnson holding fast to the leading rheim.
In ten minutes the work was done, and the return march began. It was growing cooler now, and Hautzman, heavily loaded as he was, walked faster than he did coming out.
It was scarcely dark when they came within sight of the grove in which the camp was located, but McCann was evidently frightened, for the sun had not been long out of sight behind the hills before he began firing signal guns.
Oscar answered him occasionally, but that did not seem to satisfy McCann. He was so very much afraid that his employer might lose his way on the plain, and leave him to pass the night alone among the lions, that he shot off a good many rounds of fixed ammunition that might have been put to a better use. He had tea ready, and Oscar was not long in handing over the steaks.
The boy was tired, for it was a long time since he had spent so many hours in hunting (even while he was shooting in company with Mr. Lawrence he had always rested during the heat of the day); but there was no sleep for him until his specimens had been made ready for mounting.
His men watched all his movements with the greatest interest, and Oscar became so deeply engrossed with his work that he paid scarcely any attention to the roaring of the lions and the laughing of the hyenas.
McCann did, however. When the first muffled roar reverberated among the hills the after-rider retreated to the wagon, took possession of a bed he had made up behind the fore-chest, and that was the last the young hunter saw of him until he stepped over him, about four o'clock in the morning, to put away his skins.