The Boy Traders; Or, The Sportsman's Club Among the Boers

by Harry Castlemon

Travellers on our Western plains, when they camp for the night, generally take pains to stop close beside a stream of water; but campers in Africa are obliged to follow a different custom. The springs, which are few and far apart, are generally found on the bare plain, and sometimes there is not a stick or bush within miles of them. Sticks and bushes are necessary, one to keep the fire going, and the other to build the barricade which is always erected to protect the travellers and their stock from sudden attacks of wild beasts; so the camp is made in the nearest piece of woods, the cattle are driven to the spring, and the traveller brings back enough of the water to make his tea and coffee.

Upon reaching the fountain the boys drew rein and looked about them with a great deal of interest. They saw before them a body of water about fifty yards long and half as wide, whose source of supply was in the limpid spring that bubbled out from the low bank that overhung one side of it. About twenty-five yards from the edge of the water, and in plain view of it, was the shooting-hole they were to occupy that night; and about twenty yards still further back was another bank, ten or twelve feet high, which completely shut them out from the view of the camp.

The shooting-hole was an excavation about four feet deep and six feet square. There was not much elbow-room in it for three such restless fellows as our young friends, but still it would afford them a very comfortable hiding-place if they could only content themselves with close quarters for a short time. They had one great objection to it when they came to look at it, and that was, it was too close to the water. “Two or three swift bounds would carry a wild beast from the fountain’s edge right into our very midst,” exclaimed Eugene; “that is, provided, of course, that one comes here to-night and makes up his mind to pitch into us.”

“Oh, he’ll come,” shouted Fred, from the other side of the fountain. “You needn’t borrow any trouble on that score. Come over here.”

The boys went, and, when they had examined the ground on that side of the spring, told one another that it would be surprising indeed if they did not have visitors before morning. Wild beasts of some sort came there to drink every night, and in goodly numbers, too. There could be no mistake about that, for the shore, which was low on that side of the spring, was tramped so hard that the hoofs of the thirty oxen made no impression on it. An experienced and enthusiastic hunter, like the English colonel of whom they purchased their outfit, would have been delighted at such a prospect for sport.

Their friends at the camp looked curiously at them when they came back, but saw no signs of backing out. The three hunters were not only in earnest, but they were impatient to begin operations, if one might judge by the way they hurried up the preparations for supper. They ate heartily of the viands that were set before them, and having satisfied their appetites and bidden their friends good-by, each boy shouldered his rifles and a bundle of blankets, and was ready to set out. We say “rifles,” for each boy carried two. Besides their double-barrels, Fred and Eugene took their sixteen shooters, and Archie his Maynard. They had the most faith in their breechloaders, for they were accustomed to them. Uncle Dick and Frank walked down to the spring with them, and having seen them snugly stowed away in the shooting-hole, bade them good-night and returned to the camp.

“I can’t quite understand what makes Uncle Dick act so,” said Eugene, thoughtfully. “Seems to me that he ought to have raised some objections, and I don’t see why he didn’t.”

“Perhaps he and Frank are hiding up there behind the bank to keep an eye on us, and be ready to lend us a hand in case we get into trouble,” said Fred.

“Well, we don’t want any such backing as that. If they want to take a hand in this business, let them come in here with us. There’s room enough for them with tight squeezing. I’ll just satisfy myself on that point.”

So saying, Eugene jumped out of the hole and ran up the bank. The campfire was burning brightly in the edge of the grove, and by the light it threw out the young hunter could see that Uncle Dick and his companion had just joined the rest of the party, who were busy making preparations for the night. The native servants, having built a small inclosure of thorn bushes, were driving the oxen into it and fastening them in; some of the boys were arranging the beds in the tent; and the others were tying the horses, which now began to come into the camp one after another. These intelligent animals never waited to be driven in at night as the oxen did. Their instinct taught them that the neighborhood of the campfire was the safest place for them, and thither they went as soon as it began to grow dark.