Oscar looked up in the greatest surprise and saw a horseman standing within twenty feet of him. Where he came from so suddenly was a mystery.
"That's my wilde-beest," continued the stranger. "I have been following him for more than an hour. Turn him over and you will see the mark of my bullet in his flank."
Oscar acted like a boy who had just been awakened out of a sound sleep. He rubbed his eyes to make sure that he was not dreaming, and then he saw that the dogs which had gathered about him, and whose speed and style of hunting he had so much admired, were not his own.
They were magnificent Scotch deer-hounds, and looked about as much like the members of his own pack as Oscar looked like the grinning little Hottentot who sat on his horse a short distance behind the man whose sudden and unexpected appearance had so startled and surprised him.
CHAPTER XVI. A TASTE OF CIVILIZED LIFE.
"How came you here?" asked Oscar as soon as he could speak.
He straightened up and took a good look at the hunter, and this is what he saw: A thick-set, broad-shouldered man, a gentleman on the face of him, dressed in a suit of white duck, cut in regular Boer style. His short jacket was open in front, showing the broad belt he wore about his waist and in which he carried his ammunition—at least Oscar thought so, for he saw a large powder-horn sticking out of one of his pockets. He wore a wide-brimmed hat on his head, and as much of his face as could be seen over his whiskers was as brown as sole-leather.
He carried a heavy double-barrelled rifle across the horn of his saddle, and rode a magnificent horse, whose glossy breast was flecked with foam, showing that he had been ridden long and rapidly.