“Not long,” answered the trader; “but we must make the most of our time now, for the day is far spent.”
“It is, but I could not manage to get away sooner. We had to lay in a supply of powder and lead for the hunt, besides many other things. Dobson will be here with the other waggon immediately—he’s not fifty yards behind,—and then we shall start fair for the elephant-ground. You’re quite sure that you know the way, I suppose?”
“I would not undertake to guide you if I were not sure.”
In a few minutes Dobson came up with the second waggon, and the whole party set forth on a hunting expedition into the interior, under the guidance of Stephen Orpin, who had already wandered so much about the colony that he was beginning to be pretty well acquainted with a great extent of the border line.
About the same time that Skyd and Dobson went off to the interior another party of hunters and explorers set out on an expedition from the Scottish settlement of Glen Lynden. But before touching on this, we will turn aside to relate an incident which affected the movements of both parties, and has reference to a small though not unimportant personage of our story.
Chapter Nineteen.
Describes a Series of Early Risings.
One fine morning early, high up among the krantzes and dark jungles of a kloot or mountain gorge, which branched off from Glen Lynden, a noble specimen of an African savage awoke from his night’s repose and stretched himself.