“That’s just what it is,” said Mack, “a wild dog. It was a pack of these animals you fired into, instead of a troop of lions. I suspected it all the time.”
“We’ll not stop to skin him, for his hide is not worth saving,” said Uncle Dick. “We’ll go back to camp now.”
The three hunters were so greatly astonished that they had not a word to say. Silently they shouldered their rifles and followed the party back to the camp, listening all the while for the words of ridicule which they expected from their companions, but which were never uttered. Nothing was said about the matter until the next morning at breakfast, and then the hunters themselves began to make sport of their night’s work. This led to a long conversation, during which the boys learned two things. The first was, that they had been in just as much danger of an attack from the wild dogs as they would have been had they been visited by a troop of lions. Wild dogs were by no means the insignificant foes they imagined them to be. They were as fierce as wolves, always hungry, and ready to attack anything they met, from a springbok to a buffalo. A single one would take to his heels at the sight of a human being, but numbers made them bold, and it was not often that a solitary hunter met a pack of them and escaped to tell the story. The second thing they learned was, that the reason Uncle Dick permitted them to carry out their plan of watching the fountain, was because Mack assured him that there was no danger to be apprehended from lions at that season of the year. These animals came there to drink only when the springs that lay deeper in the veldt were dry. Had they passed that way two months later, Archie and his companions would have received orders to remain in camp. The boys, however, supposed, from what Mack said, that lions visited the fountain every night, and they showed no small amount of courage in what they had done, but they never again proposed to spend a night in a shooting-hole.
During the next three weeks nothing happened that is worthy of record, and neither did anything happen to encourage the hope that their stock of goods would pay the expenses of the trip. Not a Boer in the settlement—and they visited every one of them—would trade with them. The sight of the fine fat cattle feeding on the farms they passed induced Mack to spend a good deal of time in the effort to dispose of the contents of the wagon, but not a yard of ribbon could he barter. The magistrate’s orders were strictly obeyed. Indeed, at the last farm they visited they found the magistrate himself, who was, if that were possible, more crabbed than when they first met him. No sooner had the wagon halted than he appeared and ordered Mack to move on; but the Scotchman, who had his eye on the cattle, believing that there was more money to be made out of them in Grahamstown than out of the ivory they expected to receive from the Griquas, was not to be driven away so easily. He went directly to the house, found the owner of the farm, and tried his arts with him, but with no better success. This one was as cross and surly as the other, and Mack, finally becoming disgusted at their obstinacy, jumped on his wagon and put the oxen in motion.
“I hope the Bushmen will jump down on you and steal every ox you’ve got,” he exclaimed, shaking his whip at the Boer as he drove away. “That’s all the harm I wish you, Mynheer Schrader.”
The Dutchman made an angry reply in his own language, and seemed to be giving Mack a little parting advice, for he talked rapidly to him as long as the driver was within hearing of his voice. The boys could not tell what he said, but they thought by the expression that came over the Scotchman’s face, that his words had produced an unpleasant effect. “If I thought that was so, I wouldn’t go a step farther,” the boys heard him say, when the Boer ceased his shouting and went into the house.
“If you thought what was so?” asked Eugene.
“Why, Schrader says the Bushmen will be down on us before they touch him,” answered Mack. “He says there’s a large party of them between here and the Griqua country, and that that farmer back there is going to pack up to-morrow and move his family and cattle farther into the settlement for protection.”
“And you say you don’t believe it?”
“I have no reason to disbelieve it,” said Mack, in a tone the boys did not like to hear. “They’re always roaming about, these Bushmen are. They’re something like what I think your Indians must be from what I hear of them. Although they go about on foot—the only reason they steal cattle is because they want something to eat—they get over a good stretch of country in a day, and jump down on a fellow before he knows they are near him. If I owned this wagon I’d turn back. We’ve got a journey of four weeks to make before we reach the Griquas’ principal town, and if the Bushmen are about they’ll have plenty of time to find us. We shall see trouble before many days.”