For some minutes we rode on in silence, our hearts too full for utterance; by and by I spoke, and then the lady responded, and in a little while we were chatting away about as before. We paid very little attention to the game that day, and came back to camp absolutely empty-handed, although we knew there was a short supply of meat for feeding our multitude. The rest of the party rallied us somewhat on our ill success, which I attributed to the shyness of the game, it having been hunted so long, and I added that we would have to pull out of that place within a day or so at the latest.
I should explain that in our homeward ride after the proposal and acceptance it was arranged that Miss Boland would proceed with Mrs. Roberts to Walvisch Bay, and after settling their affairs there she would take the first steamer for Cape Town. I would go with Harry and Jack to Durban, and when all our matters in that place were adjusted I would take the first steamer on that side of the peninsula for Cape Town. There we would meet again, in a city where marriage licenses are easily obtained and clergymen are numerous and fond of earning fees.
My remark about the necessity of moving out from where we were encamped precipitated matters; Jack sought and obtained an opportunity to see Miss Boland alone. I think they took a stroll in the direction of the spring that supplied us with water, under the pretense that they wanted a draft, or at least Jack did, fresh from the ground. Before they returned from the spring Jack had asked Miss Boland to become his wife, to which she had replied that her heart was already pledged to another.
"Not to Harry, is it?" in a tone that evinced considerable anger and jealousy.
"Oh no, not at all," was the reply; "he has never spoken to me on the subject."
"Then it's some fellow back in merry England, I suppose?" Jack retorted. "I don't care who it is, as long as it isn't Harry. But as long as I live," he continued, "you will always have my best wishes, Miss Boland, and my warmest hopes for your happiness."
The young woman expressed herself in similar terms toward her would-be lover, and then changed the subject of conversation, which was broken up altogether when they reached the camp again.
Harry happened to be inside the tent cleaning his rifle during this episode at the spring, and consequently knew nothing about it. After supper, which we took all together under the improvised tent where we held our first luncheon, we chatted awhile about the necessity of breaking up and going in different directions, regretting unanimously the inevitableness of the movement. When we adjourned and escorted the ladies to their tent Harry managed to draw Miss Boland aside, unperceived by either Jack or myself. He went through pretty nearly the same formula as that of the walk to the spring, receiving the same answer that had been given to Jack. He was a good deal crestfallen to find that Miss Boland's heart and hand were already pledged, and fell into the same supposition that her fiancé was somebody in the old country. His satisfaction at this belief was similar to that of Jack, and it would have been cruel to undeceive him, as well as awkward.
It is not often that a young woman has three proposals inside of six hours from three different individuals, and all three good men and true.
We agreed to have another day's hunting and then inspan and trek away, each party in its own direction. Happily for us, a large herd of elands put in its appearance early in the day, and we went in pursuit of them. There were so many of us on horseback that we managed to surround the herd and drive it into a hollow, of whose existence we knew, where a precipitous wall on three sides of an area of a few acres caught the creatures as in a trap. We could have killed the entire herd without difficulty, but we were merciful, and only shot enough to give us a good supply of meat.