Part 20 (2/2)
”You have made a successful bag this trip, I see, by your taking such a healthy view of our circ.u.mstances,” said Bob.
”Yes, I've done very well,” returned Dobson; ”and I find the hunter's life so congenial, and withal so profitable, that I'm really thinking of adopting it as a profession. And that brings me to the object of my visit here to-night. The fact is, my dear fellows, that men of your genius are not fit for farmers. It takes quiet-going men of sense to cultivate the soil. If you three were to live and dig to the age of Methuselah you'd never make a living out of it.”
”That's plain speaking,” said John, with a nod, ”and I agree with you entirely.”
”I mean to speak plainly,” rejoined Dobson, ”and now what I propose is, that you should give it up and join me in the ivory business. It will pay, I a.s.sure you.”
Here their friend entered into a minute and elaborate account of his recent hunting expedition, and imparted to John Skyd some of his own enthusiasm, but James and Robert shook their heads. Leaving them to think over his proposal, their friend went to make a call on the Brooks of Mount Hope.
”Drat that boy! he's escaped again, and after mischief I'll be bound!”
was the first sound that saluted him as he walked towards the house. It was Mrs Scholtz's voice, on the other side of the hedge with which the garden was surrounded. The remark was immediately followed by a piercing shriek from the nurse, who repeated it again and again. Dobson could see her through an opening in the branches, standing helpless, with her hands clasped and eyeb.a.l.l.s glaring. Thoroughly alarmed, he dashed towards the gate. At the same moment the voice of a child was heard:--
”Oh, look!--look 'ere, nuss, ain't I cotched a pritty ting--such a pritty ting!”
Springing through the gate, Dobson beheld Master Junkie, staggering up the track like a drunken man, with one hand clasped tight round the throat of a snake whose body and tail were twining round the chubby arm of its captor in a vain effort at freedom, while its forked tongue darted out viciously. It was at once recognised as one of the most deadly snakes in the country.
”Ain't it a booty?” cried Junkie, confronting Dobson, and holding up his prize like the infant Hercules, whom he very much resembled in all respects.
Dobson, seizing the child's hand in his own left, compressed it still tighter, drew his hunting-knife, and sliced off the reptile's head, just as Edwin Brook with his wife and daughter, attracted by the nurse's outcry, rushed from the cottage to the rescue. Scholtz and George Dally at the same time ran out respectively from stable and kitchen.
Mrs Scholtz had gone into a hysterical fit of persistent shrieking and laughter, which she maintained until she saw that her darling was saved; then, finis.h.i.+ng off with a prolonged wail, she fell flat on the gra.s.s in a dead faint.
Junkie at the same moment, as it were, took up the cry. To be thus robbed of his new-found pet would have tried a better temper than his.
Without a moment's hesitation he rushed at Frank Dobson and commenced violently to kick his s.h.i.+ns, while he soundly belaboured his knees with the still wriggling tail of the poor snake.
”What a blessing!” exclaimed Mrs Brook, grasping Dobson gratefully by the hand.
”What a mercy!” murmured Gertie, catching up the infant Hercules and taking him off to the cottage.
”What a rumpus!” growled Dally, taking himself off to the kitchen.
Scholtz gave no immediate expression to his feelings, but, lifting his better half from the gra.s.s, he tucked her under one of his great arms, and, with the muttered commentary, ”zhe shrieckz like von mad zow,”
carried her off to his own apartment, where he deluged her with cold water and abuse till she recovered.
”Your arrival has created quite a sensation, Dobson,” said Edwin Brook, with a smile, as they walked up to the house.
”Say, rather, it was opportune,” said Mrs Brook; ”but for your prompt way of using the knife our darling might have been bitten. Oh! I do dread these snakes, they go about in such a sneaking way, and are so very deadly. I often wonder that accidents are not more frequent, considering the numbers of them that are about.”
”So do I, Mrs Brook,” returned Dobson; ”but I suppose it is owing to the fact that snakes are always most anxious to keep out of man's way, and few men are as bold as your Junkie. I never heard of one being collared before, though a friend of mine whom I met on my last visit to the karroo used sometimes to catch hold of a snake by the tail, whirl it round his head, and dash its brains out against a tree.”
”You'll stay with us to-day, Dobson!” said Brook.
Frank, involuntarily casting a glance at the pretty face of Gertie--who had by that time attained to the grace of early womanhood,--accepted the invitation, and that day at dinner entertained the family with graphic accounts of his experiences among the wild beasts of the Great Fish River jungles, and dilated on his prospects of making a fortune by trading in ivory. ”If that foolish law,” he said, ”had not been made by our Governor, prohibiting traffic with the Kafirs, I could get waggon-loads of elephants' tusks from them for an old song. As it is, I must knock over the elephants for myself--at least until the laws in question are rescinded.”
”The Governor seems to have a special apt.i.tude,” said Brook, with a clouded brow, ”not only for framing foolish laws, but for abrogating good ones.”
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