He had timed the Kaffir's movements with tolerable accuracy, and he had not been in his place of concealment more than ten minutes before a cloud of dust arose in the distance, telling him that the game was in motion.
The cloud extended a long distance on each side of the boulder, and from it there issued a rumbling noise that sounded like the roar of an approaching express train. Then it occurred to Oscar, for the first time, that he had been just a little foolhardy. He looked anxiously to the right and left of him, but there was no place of refuge nearer than the tree under which he and Thompson had eaten their lunch. There was no time to run back to it, for that "heavy brigade" was charging down upon him with the speed of the wind.
"Good gracious!" soliloquized Oscar. "What if they should run over me and trample me to death?"
His heart beat rapidly at the thought, and it required the exercise of all the nerve he possessed to enable him to stand his ground.
CHAPTER XXX. OSCAR'S ASSISTANT HUNTERS.
Fortunately for Oscar Preston he was not dealing with the stupid bison of our Western plains, which will dash madly over a precipice when stampeded, and when suffering for want of water walk deliberately into a quicksand that is already choked with the bodies of their dying comrades.
The animals that were then approaching, always alert and wary, scented danger while it was yet in the distance, and, dividing right and left, gave Oscar's boulder a wide berth.