Part 10 (1/2)
”And try and make conversation with the _vrouw_?”
”That too”
”Well, don't let's go”
”Mona, are you in command of this expedition, or am I? The course I prescribe is essential to its success Hallo! Jurave!
There's a shot!”
They had turned off froh a narrow _poort_, or defile, which opened soon into another hill-encircled hollow The passage was overhung with rugged cliffs, in which ere and there a stray euphorbia or a cactus had found root Up a well-nigh perpendicular rock-face, sprawling, shaehis way He must have been quite two hundred yards distant, and was looking over his shoulder at his natural eneain the top of the cliff
Roden's piece was already at his shoulder There was a crack, then a dull thud The baboon relaxed his hold, and with one spasmodic clutch toppled heavily to the earth
”Good shot!” cried Suffield enthusiastically ”It's not worth while going to pick hih
You don't often catch an old ”
”Don't you feel as if you had corave?” said Mona
”Not especially On the other hand, I aratified to find that this old Snider shoots so true It's a Government one I borrowed from the store for the occasion”
”Murder be--ued!” said Suffield ”These baboons are the mostlaood, the brutes! Sympathy wasted, my dear child”
But when they reached Stoffel Van Wyk's farm they found, to Mona's intense relief, that that typical Boer and all his house were away froe bayings of four or five great ugly bullet-headed dogs, which could hardly be restrained froave the inforrave,” said Suffield ”Stoffel's a very decent fellow, and won't h, of course, we had to call at the house as a matter of civility”
The place for which they were bound was a long, flat-topped mountain, whose suained here and there where the rock had yawned away into a deep gully It was along the slopes at the base of the rocks that bucks were likely to be put up
”We'll leave the horses here with Piet,” said Suffield, ”and steal up quietly and look over that ridge of rocks under the _krantz_ We'll e indicated sloped away at right angles from the face of a tall cliff It was the very perfection of a place for a stalk Dis, they turned over their horses to the ”after-rider”
”Hold hard, Miss Ridsdale Don't be in such a hurry,” whispered Roden warningly ”If you chance to dislodge so much as a pebble, the bucks down there'll hear it, if there are any”
Mona, as all eagerness and excite habit is not thepurposes, and she was conscious of , half of vexation, on the part of herflat on their faces they peered over the ridge, and their patience was rewarded The ground sloped abruptly down for about a hundred feet, forrassy _hoek_, or corner Here aments of rock scattered about, were seven rhybok, two ra; some were so yet, but others had thrown up their heads, and were listening intently
They were barely two hundred yards distant Quiet, cautious as had been the advance, their keen earsin the direction of the threatened peril, their ringed black horns and prouishable to the stalkers One, a fine large raun to move uneasily
”Take the two rams as they stand,” whispered Suffield
Crash!+ Then a long reverberating roar rolls back in thunder fro, leaving one of their nuround This has fallen to Roden's weapon; the other, the big ram, is apparently unscathed
”I'll swear he's hit!” cried Suffield, in exciteoing groggily?”
Roden shaded his eyes to look after the leader of the herd, whose bounding for into distance