By Veldt and Kopje Part 18

Some of that which is here related is true.

_One_.

The boy went down to the lower camp from his lonely tent, that was pitched on one of the terraces near the head of the Pilgrim's Rest Valley, for the purpose of buying his meagre supplies for the following week, for it was Sat.u.r.day afternoon. Night was falling when he started homeward, and it was dark when he reached Slater's Claim and the Big Rock. Just there he stumbled over a man who was lying, sleeping the sleep of intoxication, across the path.

"The Boy"--he was known from one end of the creek to the other by that designation--struck a match and examined the man's face. He recognised it at once as being that of Dan the Reefer, a gigantic yellow-bearded Californian--the camp's most celebrated prospector. Next to the sleeper lay a new blanket tied up in a neat bundle.

A cold wind was searching down from the frost-dusted peaks which stood, lofty and clean-cut, against the early winter's sky; so the boy untied the bundle, and, after placing the head of the man in a comfortable position, spread the blanket over him and tucked it in. In doing this his hand touched a leather pouch. After considering the risk he was running, the boy opened the pouch and found that it contained about ten ounces of gold in a chamois leather bag. He transferred the bag to his pocket and went home.

Next morning the boy went down to the Reefer's tent and handed over what he had taken charge of. The Reefer was profanely thankful.

"I'll do you a good turn for this," said he, "--me if I don't."

"Take me out prospecting with you," said the boy at a venture.

"Can you hold a rifle straight?"

"Yes; but I haven't got one."

"Oh, that's all right; I have. You'll kill meat and I'll strike a reef that'll make our fortunes."

Here was a piece of luck; the very thing he had longed for hopelessly was thrust upon him. To go prospecting with the Reefer was an honour sought by many.

"Let's see," said the Reefer, "this is Sunday; sleep here Wednesday night and we'll start Thursday."

So the boy packed up his few belongings, stored them in the tent of a friend, and put in an appearance at the Reefer's tent at the appointed time. The Reefer was not at home, but he turned up, more or less drunk, in the middle of the night.

All preparations had been made; a month's "tucker" for two had been provided. This included flour, tea, a little sugar and salt, and a few simple remedies for use in the event of sickness. The goods were scientifically packed in two "swags"--that of the Reefer weighing about ninety pounds and that of the boy about thirty. The Reefer carried a pick, a shovel and a pan, in which the limits of combined efficiency and lightness had been reached; the boy a lifting-block, Westley-Richards rifle and a hundred cartridges. Each took, besides, a water-bottle, a cooking "billy," a blanket, a spare flannel s.h.i.+rt and two pairs of thick woollen socks.

Their course led down the valley of the Blyde River, through the loveliest imaginable scenery. Down and down the valley seemed to sink among the convoluted mountains that are so rich in forest, crag and sounding waterfall. After crossing a divide the deserted site of the village of Ohrigstad was pa.s.sed. Here was the scene of a tragedy. The towns.h.i.+p had flourished, the land was fertile, the surrounding a hunters' paradise. All went well for a time; then came fever; within a few weeks all the settlers went down. The majority died; the survivors were rescued and removed to a healthier locality, where they founded the town of Lydenburg. In blue-books published years afterwards, the abandonment of Ohrigstad was erroneously attributed to fear of the Bapedi--natives located in a neighbouring mountain range.

The Reefer was a silent man, who was obsessed by one idea--the finding of gold where none had previously been found. The one and only thing which gave him pleasure was to make a "strike." But the discovery once declared and made the object of a "rush," the thing immediately lost its charm. Then he would sell out, usually for far less than the value of his claim, and once more follow the rainbow. This man's life had literally been spent on the prospecting trail. He had made several rich strikes of gold, not alone in Africa, but in America--North and South.

In those days the Klond.y.k.e was unknown, but the Reefer had trailed to what he called "the head waters of the Arctic," and had found rich gold in the Yukon district, from which he was driven back by the pitiless cold. He knew every creek and placer in the alluvial fields of California.

The boy was nineteen years of age, but did not look it. He was lithe, small-boned and tall, with fair hair, blue eyes and a face that gained him the good graces of some women. Thrown on the world when quite a child, he had known phases of sin and suffering not usually experienced by the young. It was a strain of idealism and an inherent pa.s.sionate love of nature that enabled him to save his soul alive. In his ear the voice of the wilderness was ever sounding. Whenever he managed to save enough money to buy sufficient supplies, he would wander away into the vague, unknown country lying east and north of the fields, in search of gold, hunting and adventure. The first he never found.

Down and down still sank the valley towards its junction with the Olifant--studded throughout its enchanting length with dark green patches of virgin forest, strung like emeralds upon the chain of a crystal stream. The summer rains had been heavy, so every ravine cleaving the hills on either side was vocal with impetuous water. The wild creatures gazed at them from the high ledges or crashed unseen through the underwood at their approach. The chanting call of the brown falcons wheeling among the crags sounded like a trumpet bidding them go forward into the unknown, where dwelt fortune and romance.

They camped each night under trees centuries old. How the leaping flames lit up the groined boughs spreading from h.o.a.r-ancient trunks, revealing depths of mysterious shadow in the greenery! When the flames died down, how the restful darkness closed in, full of rich suggestion!

These nights were so full of rapture that the boy could hardly sleep: it seemed a sin to waste such hours in unconsciousness. Often the dawn would find him watching and praying with that best kind of prayer--the uplifting of the heart to the plane of nature's most exalted harmonies.

Then he would sink into an hour's dreamless slumber, to be awakened by a shove from the Reefer's friendly foot, and to find a steaming pannikin of tea ready at the side of his couch.

_Two_.

The sound of a violin in one of the gorges of the Olifant's River valley seemed very incongruous indeed. The source of the music was hidden behind some large trees. Beyond these stood a tent-wagon. On the box sat a tall, dark, bearded man plying the bow industriously, the music being a reel played in very quick time. His clothing was of brayed skin; his muscular arms were bare to the elbow. An immense lion-skin lay drying, the fleshy side being uppermost, upon the "tent" of the wagon. The black hair of the mane was protruding over the back of the tent, and the tufted tail dangled close to the face of the musician. At the side of the wagon was a small "lean-to" of coa.r.s.e calico. Meat, in various stages of the process of drying, hung festooned among the trees.

The musician laid down his instrument, leaped lightly from the wagon and advanced with outstretched hand.

"Welcome, welcome," he said, speaking in Dutch; "put down your bundles and rest. Look what your uncle has shot." Here he pointed to the lion-skin. "You fellows are after gold, I suppose; but what has a hunter to do with gold? Come and drink coffee. Anna, is there any coffee ready?"

The concluding words were addressed to a girl who, followed shyly by a small boy, emerged from the lean-to and silently shook hands with the strangers. She appeared to be about eighteen years old. Her oval, slightly freckled face had beauty of a distinctive type. Her eyes were dark and had an expression of sadness. Health glowed through and enriched her skin. But the glory of this girl was her hair; its wealth of bronzed auburn, thick and waved, was full of changing lights. She was dressed partly in male attire.

Somehow this did not seem incongruous to the boy. He was by disposition unconventional to a degree. His eyes appraised the girl admiringly; the shapely figure was almost too st.u.r.dy for grace, but it had the strength his lacked. Nature, who always schemes for the mating of contrasts, made these two goodly and desirable in each other's eyes.

The boy's appraising glances followed the girl as she went to the tail-board of the wagon and busied herself with the coffee arrangements.

The play of her strong, full arm was good to watch; the inartistic _veldschoen_ could not hide the symmetry of her feet. A loose, blouse-like garment of linen permitted glimpses of a neck strong and fine, and dazzlingly white below the area of sunburn.

The coffee was a pleasant variant from tea--the prospector's only prepared beverage. They sat on the sward and talked. The Reefer had no Dutch, so the boy acted as interpreter. The owner of the wagon was a Boer named Dirk Fourie. He had a farm in the Lydenburg district, but spent most of his time in the hunting-field. Fourie was a widower with three children. Accompanied by these and an old Hottentot he had undertaken this trip, intending to reach the low country in the vicinity of the nether reaches of the Letaba River. But he found that the rains had there fallen late, so, dreading fever, decided to remain for a time in the valley of the Olifant. To avoid risk of "bush-sickness" he had sent the oxen back to the farm in charge of his elder son and the Hottentot, with orders that they were to be brought back after six weeks had pa.s.sed.

Fourie's manner was characterised by a kind of yearning friendliness; the advent of the strangers seemed to afford him very sincere pleasure.

He neither knew nor cared anything about gold, so the Reefer soon found the conversation irksome and wandered off to examine the formation. The boy just then cared for nothing so much as hunting, so he and Fourie sat and discussed game and the slaying thereof. The lion-skin was pulled down and admired. A graphic account of the downfall of the great marauder was given. It appeared that Fourie's father had been killed by a lion, so the Boer carried on a lifelong vendetta against the whole lion species. The death had been amply revenged, for twenty-two of these animals had fallen to the long-barrelled _roer_ which hung in the wagon, and nine to a more modern rifle--a Westley-Richards musket--just then standing against the wheel.

Fourie went back to his violin. His repertoire seemed to consist solely of reels, all of the very liveliest kind. The boy and the girl gravitated towards each other. But conversation was difficult; they were full of embarra.s.sment. They wandered together for a short distance along the hillside. He told her of his life on the gold and diamond fields and of those far-off towns she had heard rumours of. The ocean and the great s.h.i.+ps were to her the most wonderful of all things. Had such not been mentioned in the Bible, she would not have believed their existence possible. She had been taught to read, but the Bible was her only book. With her large, l.u.s.trous eyes fixed on the boy's face she listened, gravely interested, to all he told her.

Of herself and her experiences the girl could hardly be induced to say a word. Her ignorance of the world beyond the farm and the scenes of her father's different hunting trips was almost fathomless. They returned to the wagon, and soon afterwards the Reefer arrived, carrying a haversack full of quartz.

"I think we'll stay and see what's to be found about here," he said.

Next morning the Reefer disappeared on his endless quest of the rainbow.

Fourie and the boy went for a tramp after game. The somewhat vague and unpractical mien of the Boer disappeared when on the hunting spoor; he became cool, alert and capable. The lore of the wilderness was to him as an open book. The boy had somewhat prided himself on his skill as a hunter, but he soon saw that compared with Fourie he was the merest novice. Signs and tokens invisible to him before were pointed out and deduced from unerringly. Fourie was generous, giving his companion opportunity after opportunity to lay low koodoo, sable and tsessabi.

The spoil was handed over to the "Baiala"--"the people who are dead"-- wretched outlaws or waifs of annihilated clans, who wandered, weaponless and without clothing, over the veldt. As a rule they lived on roots, grubs, snakes and other unspeakable things. Like wine-flies when one opens a bottle of wine, the Baiala would suddenly materialise from the void whenever meat was in evidence. They would be given the bulk of the carcase for their own use, and told to convey the choicer portions, with the skin, to the camp. This they never failed honestly to do.

The abject submissiveness of these people was pathetic in the extreme; it must have been the result of a terrible course of hopeless suffering.

They never spoke unless first addressed; then they answered in low-toned monosyllables. A weird deftness and intelligence characterised all they did. At the camp they would silently set down whatever had been given into their charge, and as silently vanish. As an instance of their honesty it may be mentioned that once, when the boy lost his hunting-knife, it was found by the Baiala and returned to him.

It was sticking in the ground, close to his head, when he awoke one morning. And what a priceless possession the implement would have been to the finder!

Evidences of a once-teeming human population abounded over the whole countryside, which was covered with groups of low, circular stone walls, indicating where thousands of kraals once stood. But the exterminating raids of Tshaka had swept it bare. Now its only human dwellers were a few creatures so wretched and so reduced that the very beasts of prey were said to despise them.

Thus pa.s.sed many halcyon days. The boy had now become almost a member of the little family to whose hearth in the wilderness he had drifted through so strange a chance. The Reefer was hardly in evidence; he had struck a small leader which bore gold, and was endeavouring, with infinite pains, to trace this to its connection with the parent reef.

The spot where he was working was about half-an-hour's walk distant.

Thither he went every morning early; thence he returned at dusk every evening. When hot on the scent of gold the Reefer was not a man to be lightly interfered with. He had made it clear to the boy from the beginning that his help was not required, or even desired, except towards filling the pot with meat. Thus the two had little or no intercourse.

The boy was more and more struck by the individuality of his new friends; they were so utterly unlike any others of their cla.s.s that he had foregathered with. As the intimacy grew, Fourie told more of the details of his history. It appeared he was not quite orthodox in his religious views, and had had in consequence a serious quarrel with the pastor of his church. This had happened years back. One result was that Fourie was under a kind of ban among his own people. His wife had shared his views. The children, or at all events the two elder ones, having natural strength of character, and being cut off from intercourse with other young humans, developed on lines of their own.

Fourie had strains of idealism and even of philosophy. He loved his violin, but his musical ambition never, alas! soared beyond reels. Like a child in everything appertaining to social mankind, this Boer was almost supernaturally wise in interpreting the laws governing forest, field and sky. He had a naturally kind heart and a deep love for nature. Thus he only killed ordinary game when meat was required.

Solitude and the spiteful usage of his fellow-men had not soured his disposition. His only foe was the lion; and the lion, which he pursued constantly and implacably, he met and vanquished in fair, open encounter.

As time pa.s.sed, the girl and the boy became more unconstrained towards each other. The girl had much innate refinement, and was very intelligent. Between her and the boy there was little articulate speech; the silence of the wilderness had invaded their souls. When the wilderness unveils the fulness of its beauty to a human being speech becomes largely superfluous. For although the wilderness is full of clear indications, it is mostly inarticulate, and those who dwell there must interpret its dumb alphabet or perish. Between these two human creatures signs gradually took the place of words; glances became eloquent; a gesture often conveyed more than a sentence.

The girl could hold a rifle straighter than most men; her frame was tireless; she could endure hunger and thirst without wilting. She had often been her father's hunting companion. When Fourie now planned a more than usually extended expedition she decided to take part in it.

The Boer absolutely l.u.s.ted after lions to slay, but no spoor was to be found anywhere within a day's walk of the camp. However, away down near the junction of the Olifant and the Letaba was a locality which he had previously visited with satisfactory results. So thither it was decided to go. The Reefer remained behind, with him Fourie's little son.

So one still, cool morning, when a transparent haze filled the valley and hung like the shadow of a dream over the forested plains that stretch from the foot of the mighty mountains to the far-off Lebombo, the boy, the girl and the Boer started on their adventure. Their course led along the southern bank of the Olifant. The mountains were soon left behind, and then, on the plains, the boy--for the first time in his life--saw large game in true profusion. All day long as they advanced could be seen the varied population of the wild melting before them into the gloom; for the forest, although continuous, was not dense except in the immediate vicinity of the river. Thus the eye could range for a couple of hundred yards on every side.