“What move?” asked Archie.
Mack bobbed his head toward the house by way of reply. The boys looked and saw a young Boer, who they afterward learned was the son of the owner of the farm, sitting on his horse listening to some instructions from his father. The old man was excited, if one might judge by the way he paced back and forth in front of his house and swung his arms about his head. When he had finished his speech the young Boer rode off posthaste.
“I don’t like that move,” repeated Mack. “I don’t know whether the old chap wants help, or whether he is sending word to the other farmers that they mustn’t trade with us. It is one or the other. If he doesn’t change his tactics pretty soon, I’ll put all the things back in the wagon and to-morrow we’ll trek again.”
While Mack was unloading his goods and spreading them out on the ground so that they could be inspected by the Boer and his family, if they should choose to look at them, the boys busied themselves in unsaddling the horses, pitching the tents, and making other preparations for the night. They stopped to look at the retreating figure of the young Boer occasionally, and told one another that his mission, whatever it was, must be one of importance, for he kept his horse on the run as long as he remained in sight. Presently a party of negroes, some on foot and others on horseback, rode into camp. The boys, who had by this time learned to look upon these visits as petty annoyances that could not be escaped (the natives were great beggars and thieves), did not take a second look at these newcomers, until they heard Mack say that they were Zulus and Griquas. He knew the members of all the tribes and could tell them as far as he could see them, just as Dick and Bob could tell a Sioux Indian or a Comanche.
“Griquas!” repeated George. “There’ll be a row here now, I suppose.”
“Who’ll raise it?” asked Mack.
“Why, that Boer over there,” said Frank. “I should think the natives would have better sense than to go prowling about through an enemy’s country.”
“Oh, that’s nothing,” returned Mack. “They haven’t come to blows yet. They are only threatening each other.”
As the boys expected to see a good deal of the Griquas before their journey was ended, they looked at their visitors with a good deal of interest. Unlike the majority of the natives they had thus far seen, these were dressed as well as a good many of the Boers with whom they had come in contact, only their clothes were made of leather, and instead of hats they wore gaudy handkerchiefs tied around their heads, after the fashion of some of the negroes in our Southern States. They rode sorry-looking beasts, and each of them carried a cheap smooth-bore rifle on his shoulder, and an immense powderhorn under his arm. They were a ruffianly looking set, and the boys thought that the efforts of the missionaries, who had lived among them so many years, had not amounted to much. They had been taught to wear clothing and to use firearms, and that was as far as the white man’s influence had had any effect on them. Their companions, the Zulus, were a still harder lot. They looked and acted like genuine savages. They were on foot, and their weapons consisted principally of spears and war-clubs.
“They’re the lads that own the ivory,” said Mack. “If you should go to their country you’d see elephants by the drove, and have no trouble at all in filling this wagon with their teeth.”