“ Blakeney, Guy, Tom, and Poeskop sallied forth with four horses, laden with over five hundred feet of rope and riems, to measure the depth of the cliff wall down which they were to hang their rope-ladder. It was a long and toilsome ascent; but at length the little party stood above the kloof, and knee-haltering the horses, crept to the edge of the chasm and looked over.
It was a wonderful scene. Far below lay spread one of the fairest valleys that the eye of man has ever rested upon. ”

“ And you would have a rare business to keep yourself supplied with even the bare necessaries of life. Think of the long trek from Mossamedes--six weeks' travel before your tea and coffee, and sugar and other small luxuries, can reach you. Take my word for it. No one has enjoyed the life of the hunter and explorer more than I have done. I knocked about, as you know, for years in South Africa before I settled down. After a time, even the most inveterate wanderer begins to sigh for rest and some of the comforts of civilization. ”

“ The foolish bird stuck obstinately to its point; its pace was now slackening; and Guy succeeded in getting within fifty yards of its line. Slipping off his pony, he fired as the big bird came by, and, aiming well forward, struck the ostrich fair in the body. Even so tough a creature as this, the largest of all feathered fowl, could not resist the impact of a solid Martini bullet at fifty paces, and the bird suddenly fell dead in its tracks, a mere quivering bundle of flesh and feathers. ”

“ He saw above him, leering at him with fiendish glee and malevolence, the face of Poeskop, the Bushman.
"So," cried Poeskop in Dutch, "I have you at last! At last, Karl Engelbrecht! I have waited a long time, but now I am even with you, edele heer [noble sir] ," he added, with jeering sarcasm. "You won't like the fall, but you've got to face it, and you'll strike plaguy hard at the bottom. At last, Karl, the devil has thee! The devil has thee!"
Death, indeed, stared the Boer in the face. He knew he was doomed; he knew that nothing in this world would turn the fell purpose of the man above him. ”

“ I had wandered about in so many different directions on the tracks of the pony that I had by this time clean lost my bearings. However, I took what I judged to be the direction of your wagon route, after looking at my compass and the sun, and marched on. After skinning the eland I had acquired a tremendous thirst, and could have drunk gallons; before sundown I began to find serious inconvenience from want of water. You know it has been desperately hot; and shut up in dense bush and forest on this light, sandy soil, it seemed blazing. I never felt the heat so much. ”

“ The bull knelt quietly down upon his fore-legs, his hind-legs sank under him, and there, resting in that attitude, he gave up the ghost.
"He is dood, baas," cried Poeskop joyfully. "You have done well. Two good bulls for your first elephant hunt is as much as any man can desire. This bull's teeth will weigh forty pounds apiece; the other's are much heavier. Hark!"
As he spoke there came sounds of firing in front of them, first one shot, then two others.
"Come on, Poeskop!" cried Guy. "They are still hard at it. We may come in for more of the fun." ”

“ The wagons came up with them presently, and the meat was loaded up. Then they trekked on for the river, where they camped for the evening. After the oxen had grazed, they were brought in at sundown, and fastened to their yokes for the night. Big fires were lighted, and the two parties, masters and servants, enjoyed a banquet of giraffe venison. The flesh of a fresh young cow-giraffe is excellent, somewhat like good veal, with a game-like flavour of its own. But the bonnes-bouches of the evening meal were the marrow-bones of these gigantic quadrupeds, roasted in the hot ashes. ”

“ I like the life immensely, and mean to stick to it. I can think of nothing that will suit me half so well as to settle down steadily to the same kind of existence that you lead here. I should like it above all things, and I have thought the whole matter very carefully over."
"Remember, Guy, my boy," said his uncle kindly, "that hitherto, except for the journey to Johannesburg, which wasn't a very pleasant one, although from a financial point of view it answered excellently, you have seen rather the bright side of things out here. ”

“ But the bull had by no means yet done with him. It turned short in its tracks so soon as it had pulled up, and, with ears held at right angles to its head, looking, as Guy in his place of concealment thought to himself, for all the world like a pair of mighty sails hoisted to the breeze, and its trunk searching the air closely for the scent of its enemies, trotted quickly back. If by chance the beast got his wind, Guy knew quite well that he would have to sustain another charge, and the monster would be on top of him. ”

“ Too many young Englishmen, it is to be feared, look upon stock-farming and cattle-ranching as pleasant out-of-door occupations, entailing merely an ornamental kind of existence. They picture to themselves, before going out to South Africa, a shirt-sleeve and broad-brimmed hat kind of life, in which the stock-farmer has merely to have a good time, while his flocks and herds increase about him. ”

“ As the white men looked up at the peaked and serrated crests of the berg before them--now glowing with crimson and rose under the magic of the African sunset--they could not help being sensible of the spell of mystery and expectation cast over them by the witchery of that wonderful hour and the sight of this magnificent mountain land, which had lain here during ages of the past, remote and unknown, hugging within its solitudes the wealth that all civilized men covet so greatly. ”

“ But you are born to be lucky as well as rich. I saw it in your face when first I set eyes on you. You will be a great hunter, and have already made a first-class beginning. But you must beware of three things in the hunting veldt--a wounded buffalo, a wounded rhinoceros, and a hungry lion on a dark or stormy night. The last is the worst of all, and nothing, neither guns nor fires nor thorn kraal, will stop him."
So talking to his young master, Poeskop busied himself in making a big fire and getting some food out of the saddle-bags. ”

“ During these days of enforced quiet his mind, still consumed by an overpowering passion for revenge, turned over incessantly murderous plans against the men who had so lately defeated him. If, by some means, he could gain the gold valley and lie in ambush, he might surely, he thought to himself, with the aid of his henchman Quasip, a notably good shot, dispose of two of the most hated of his rivals without much difficulty. Poeskop and the man Blakeney should fall to their first two barrels, and they could surely manage the two lads thereafter. ”

“ He had a lump on his forehead and a red patch on his cheek-bone, and one of his knuckles was badly cut; beyond these slight injuries he has untouched.
"My word, uncle," said Guy, as Mr. Blakeney took his coat off and poured out some water, "you did punish that ruffian. I had no idea you were such a fighting man. It was splendid!"
"Well, boys," returned Mr. Blakeney, "I don't like fighting, and I have always made it a point to avoid a scuffle if it can possibly be done. But sometimes there comes an occasion when a man must take his own part. ”

“ After their experiences in the thirst-land, he was not going to take any more unnecessary risks, and he had fastened to his saddle his water-bottle, coat, and a hunting case containing a little food. Thus equipped, he picked up his sporting Martini rifle--he had lent Tom his Mannlicher--and, swinging himself lightly into the saddle, rode off at a brisk canter, humming, in the lightness of his heart, a cheerful song. Poeskop gazed admiringly after him as he rode away.
"There goes a proper young baas!" he said to Jan Kokerboom, as they sat at their meal. "'Tis a fine thing to be an Englishman." ”

“ The bull could go no farther. He was standing in a little clearing among some machabel trees, swaying from side to side, the blood dropping from his mouth.
"He is very sick, baas," whispered Poeskop. "He will die soon."
"I can't wait," returned the lad. "I shall put him out of his misery."
"Pas op!" whispered the Bushman. "You can never trust an elephant. He may charge again."
But Guy was not to be gainsaid. Creeping within thirty paces of the sick monster, he took careful aim for the head shot again, between the eye and the ear, and pulled trigger. ”

“ Poeskop!" cried Tom; adding in Dutch, "How do you like the climb?"
"Hard work, Baas Tom," responded Poeskop cheerily, as he squatted on his hams to rest, and wiped the sweat from his face with his usual handkerchief, a jackal's tail. "But I've seen harder jobs even than this. If you had lived the life of a wild Bushman, as I did till I was a grown man, you'd soon understand that a day like this is mere child's play. Nowadays I know that I get two good meals every single day of my life, rain or shine. ”

“ When they roar like that, lions have full stomachs, and are not hungry. It is only when they purr and growl, or, still worse, when they are silent, that you must look out for them."
"They've got our wind, Poeskop," added Mr. Blakeney, "and they're telling one another of the fact."
"Ja, baas," said the Bushman. "They smell meat and oxen; but they won't touch us to-night--at least, I don't think so. There's the old manikin, the father lion--that was the first roar; then his wife; and then a young, nearly full-grown lion, their son."
"How on earth do you know that, Poeskop?" exclaimed Tom. ”

“ In the puzzling eddies of air, that are almost always to be found in forest country, some faint whiff of Guy's presence had reached the infuriated beast; and now, with a trumpet that shook the leafage and rang far through the woodland, the great beast came crashing through trees and bush straight for Guy's place of concealment. Guy looked around. It was too dangerous to attempt to run now; in the thorn bush and scrub where he crouched he was too deeply involved to have any decent prospect of escape. He must stand the charge, and trust to his bullet turning the brute. ”

“ Blakeney and Tom, ten and twenty yards farther on, and then returned to his post near Guy, where his spare rifle lay. Still no sign of their enemies. Would they never come? It seemed to Guy, to Tom, to all of them, as if for some reason the assault was not to be delivered. But the Boers knew their own plans, and had excellent reasons of their own for postponing their attack.
Now in the far east the paling sky tells that day is near at hand, and the light is perceptibly coming. A faint glow of colour shows in the heavens; the gray east is turning to a pale green. ”

“ Poeskop seems to be the backbone or mainspring of the whole thing. As far as I can make out, he, and he only, is the man who knows where the gold is."
"Then," broke in Engelbrecht, "all we have to do is to kidnap Poeskop, squeeze his secret out of him--a matter easy enough away out on the veldt--and rake in the plunder. There will be no difficulty in surprising the camp at any time, and the rest is easy enough."
"Steady, my friend," said Minho. "You go too fast. This Englishman, as far as I can make out, is a good veldt man, and not likely to be hustled out of his secret in this easy way. ”

“ The eland is the softest and most easily slain of all African beasts of chase, and, unlike most of the antelope family, which are astonishingly tenacious of life, will often fall dead to a single well-planted bullet. Feeling mightily content, the lad examined his prize, handled the long, even horns, noted the fine basal twist, put his knife into the dead beast's loin and saw that she was very fat, and turned to knee-halter his pony. ”

“ Blakeney, as, having filled and lit his pipe, he stood up and looked over the country in front of them, "Poeskop says that we shall find plenty of game out here. I believe we shall. It looks all over like a game veldt. We may see giraffe, buffalo, eland, blue wildebeest, roan antelope, zebra, lion, leopard, and wart-hog at any time. It's beautiful veldt. It reminds me of part of Khama's Country and Mashonaland. I only hope the game will be as plentiful as it used to be there twenty years ago, when I was a lad a year or two older than you are now, Guy." ”

“ They reached the inner end of the poort, now blocked with huge boulders, and began to climb as softly as they could. The Bushman pulled himself over the obstacles with the lightness and the noiselessness of a cat. Guy did his utmost to follow his example, but he was much heavier; and presently a boulder, becoming dislodged under his weight, fell with some little noise. Instantly there rose from the stillness of the camp, sixty yards away, the furious barking of wagon dogs. Men stirred about the wagons.
"Quick!" cried Poeskop, in a hoarse whisper. "We must run!" ”

“ With a press of the knees and a touch of the spur, Guy sent his pony at his hardest gallop. In less than ten minutes he was close up to the herd. Suddenly reining up, and jumping from his nag, he took aim at a huge old bull, carrying a pair of massive horns. The shot was a good one; and as the troop thundered on, the bull turned aside, galloped on for another fifty yards, and stood.
"Baas, get on the horse again," whispered Poeskop, who had ridden up with Guy's second rifle. "If he charges you on foot he'll catch you." ”