And once again the square of wagons became a fort, and the little family stood to its arms against all comers, for its right to live in the place it had chosen.
Piet told them what he had seen; it was little enough, and he had no key to its meaning. Susanna, having helped to lay the spare rifles and the ammunition ready, had gone back to her fire, for pots must be watched though the veld were alive with enemies. The men, each standing on a wagon wheel, searching the country with keen eyes, turned the thing over in their minds.
"You are sure he was white, father?" asked Jan.
Piet was quite sure.
"And he had no gun?"
"No," replied Piet. "He had nothing in his hands at all."
They spoke without turning their heads or ceasing for an instant in the watch they kept.
"Then," said Klein Piet, with assurance, "it must be the English. Only the English go about without guns in a wild country, and collect taxes."
The explanation seemed reasonable to them all; they would have been less dismayed if a black foe had shown himself in force. The feeling that dragged the Boer people up by the roots and set them trekking into the unknown was no mere antipathy to taxation; it was founded on an abiding mistrust and hatred of the English who were multiplying in the land. Piet's strong face took on an added grimness as Klein Piet's explanation forced itself on him.
"But perhaps," suggested Andries, the youngest, "it is just an Englishman on trek. He would not trouble us."