"You're Mr. Joe Browne?"
"That I am, but----" He paused, looking puzzled.
"You don't know me," said Mr. Halliday, "so you needn't rack your memory. We've just met your brother. He was after a rhinoceros and tumbled into a game-pit."
"Clumsy ass!" cried Mr. Browne, in the manner of an affectionate brother. "No bones broke, I hope?"
Mr. Halliday reassured him on that point, and the two stood for a few minutes exchanging notes. The South African said that he had been much attracted by what he had seen of the country, and if Mr. Halliday became a settler, he would in all probability have him for a neighbour.
"But it won't be yet," he added. "We must settle up our affairs at the Cape first. Three or four months, perhaps; you'll have grown your first crops by then. Don't shoot all the game before I come."
"You have left us some, I hope," said John, eyeing the porters' burdens.
"Oh, that's a couple of water-buck for the pot. You'll find bigger game than that. Hippo meat's uncommonly good, but don't try elephant's foot; it's a fraud. Don't believe any one who tells you to the contrary. Good-bye; pleased to have met you; bar rhinoceros or game-pits we'll meet again."
[CHAPTER THE FOURTH--White Man's Magic]
When John found opportunity to put pen to paper, he wrote, as he said, "loads" to a school chum about the incidents of the next few days, every one furnishing a new excitement. Mr. Halliday was so anxious to accomplish the aim of his journey that he pushed on resolutely each day, striking camp at earliest dawn, marching with intervals until ten, resting until three or four, and then going on again until nightfall. The ground was varied, now a stretch of grass land, now a belt of forest; here a rapidly flowing stream rushing between high banks covered with dense vegetation, there a tract of hard volcanic soil so rugged and hot under the sun's rays that walking was painful. It was only during the intervals for rest that John was able to indulge his sporting tastes, and at the same time do service to the commissariat. He caught some fine fish in the rivers, and wished there had been time to follow up the hippopotamus tracks he discovered on the banks. He brought down several water-buck and red congoni with his .303 rifle, and one day was vastly excited to see a black-maned lion with his lioness cross from one patch of reeds to another. The sight of other game in wonderful variety--zebras, leopards, antelopes--became so common that after a time it ceased to be impressive, and opportunities for shooting them came but rarely, the country they frequented being flat and open, and their scent being so keen that it was almost impossible to come within range.