The Gold Kloof

The Bushman looked about him with a puzzled expression. Even he, in this wilderness where every object seemed to be repeated interminably, and not a hill, or swelling of the ground, or any kind of landmark, arose to offer guidance to the traveller, seemed for a few minutes to be at fault.

"Hallo, Poeskop!" said Guy wearily. "Have you lost your way? I hope not. I've got a thirst on me that I would give a sovereign to quench."

"Nie, baas," said the Bushman cheerfully. "We have not lost our way yet. I shall soon show you the wagon spoor."

And, in truth, the little wizened fellow was not many seconds at fault. To Guy, as the little man looked this way and that, searched the sky, squinted at the westering sun, and opened his broad nostrils to the faint breeze that was now beginning to move over the parched veldt, it seemed almost as if Poeskop was smelling his way. At all events, his savage instinct quickly reasserted itself. Touching his pony by the heel, he went resolutely forward. For another hour and a half they marched on in silence. The veldt seemed very desolate and very sombre. A few small antelopes fled away from their approach; these were steinbuck and duyker, which exist apparently as readily without water as with it. The sun sank below the skyline, leaving the flaming heavens arrayed in a marvellous glow of radiant colouring; the light quickly faded.

"Poeskop," said Guy at last, "we shall have to camp out for the night. It's a bad job. I don't know what we shall do without water."

Scarcely had the words left his mouth when the Bushman pointed to the sand a few yards in front of them, and said quietly, -

"There's the wagon spoor, baas."

And so, indeed, it was. They rode on in the darkness for something more than three hours longer. Guy, who suffered much from thirst, and began to ache all over from the effects of fourteen hours in the saddle, the weight of his rifle, and the added labour of supporting the eland head in front of him, began to wonder if he could stick it out much longer. At last, towards nine o'clock, they saw, twinkling cheerily in the distance, the light of a fire. It was the camp fire. Their trouble was instantly at an end; Guy's aches and pains vanished; they cantered briskly forward, and in ten minutes were at the wagon.

"Hullo!" cried Mr. Blakeney cheerily, as they rode up; "so you've turned up at last. Who is there?"

"Poeskop and I, uncle," said Guy. "Hasn't Tom turned up yet?"

"Not yet," said Mr. Blakeney, without a trace of anxiety; "but he'll be here presently, no doubt. How do you feel? Dry?"

"Dry isn't the word for it, uncle," said Guy. "I never knew what thirst was until to-day; not even when I got lost at Bamborough, hunting hartebeest. I would have given £5 willingly for a glass of water in the last hour or two."

"Well, you were a pair of silly fellows to go tearing off without your water-bottles and without food; and when I heard of it afterwards, I knew you would suffer for it. Now have a drink, lad. Here, Seleti, fetch the baas some water."

Seleti brought water from one of the barrels, and, lukewarm, muddy, and ill-tasted as was the stuff, to Guy it seemed the veriest nectar he had ever tasted. Then the Bushman drank.

"Now, Guy," said his uncle, "I wouldn't drink much of that muddy stuff. Have a bowl of tea; it will quench your thirst far better, and pull you together."

Guy took his uncle's advice, and felt all the better for it. Then he ate some supper. They sat by the fire till 11 o'clock, expecting Tom to ride up at any moment; but no Tom appeared. They were in the middle of a dangerous piece of thirst country, and it was absolutely essential that the oxen and wagon should trek on. The cattle had already endured two days and nights without touching water; they must reach the river-bed in front of them within the next twenty-four hours, or die. Enough water had been carried in the wagon-barrels to supply human necessities and give a scant drink to the horses hitherto, but that was drawing to an end, and the horses must push on also.

Leaving the wagon to go forward, and retaining with them three of the freshest horses, some food, and full water-bottles, Mr. Blakeney, Guy, and Mangwalaan stayed behind at the fire waiting for the return of Tom. Poeskop had now to accompany the wagon and show the way to water. Dawn came round, but still Tom tarried. Mr. Blakeney began now to betray some anxiety. He knew that his boy had no water with him, and he knew that two days and nights of thirst in such a veldt constituted a very real danger.

They cantered back to their camp of the previous morning and took the spoor of the three hunters, hoping in that way to trace the wanderings of the lost lad. Mangwalaan was a splendid tracker, as good almost as Poeskop himself; but even to Mangwalaan that inhospitable wilderness refused to yield up its secret. Troops of eland and gemsbuck had wandered about the country meanwhile, obliterating all traces of the hunter's devious wanderings; and after searching throughout the long and hot day, the three camped out in that desolate wilderness, dead tired, disheartened, and, in the case of two of them, with the foreboding of some nameless calamity weighing upon their spirits. They lit a fire, and almost in silence ate some food and drank a portion of the little lime juice and water that remained to them. Then Guy dozed off-he could keep awake no longer-and he and Mangwalaan slept.

He was awakened just before the dawn by the touch of his uncle's hand. Starting up, he looked into Mr. Blakeney's face, and was horrified at the change that had come over him. He looked ten years older, drawn, gray, and haggard. He had, in fact, been awake all night, in a state of intense nervous anxiety about his son.

"My lad," he said in a hoarse voice, "we must saddle up and be off again. The nags are tired, but they will stand up for a day longer. I pray God all may yet be well; but I fear-yes, I fear this hateful, waterless desert. It is a danger far worse than the worst lion veldt, or the most treacherous natives. I would to God I had never let you two lads go hunting till we had crossed it."

For the greater part of that day they continued the search, which, to Guy's sinking heart, seemed to become more and more hopeless. Occasionally they would fire a shot and listen, but, alas! no answering shot returned. It was pitiful to watch his uncle's restless anxiety, his feverish haste. Towards one o'clock it became apparent that their own horses were already jaded. They were now near the wagon spoor again, and, with the view of reaching water and obtaining fresh mounts, they rode, at the best pace their ponies could manage, on the track. At half-past five o'clock they had reached the outspan and water. Poeskop came forward with an anxious face.

"Is Baas Tom here?" demanded Mr. Blakeney, in a hard, dry voice.

"Nie, baas," came the answer shakily. "He is not here. But his pony came in alone, and very done up, two hours since."

"O God!" groaned Mr. Blakeney, in a despairing tone, "what is to be done?"

It was a blow sufficient to daunt the stoutest heart. Tom had now, as his father well knew and understood, been wandering for two days and a night without water. He was a tough and a strong, and above all a courageous lad, but in this land of thirst even the strongest man can scarcely expect to hold out for more than three days and nights under such conditions. That was a miserable night indeed. Nothing could be done; but two parties were to be out on the search again at daybreak next morning.

Chapter X.

TOM'S STORY. – THE BABOON BOY

Quitting the camp at the first streaks of dawn, after a hurried breakfast, Mr. Blakeney and Jan Kokerboom, the Koranna, together with Guy and Poeskop, rode off along the wagon spoor, intending after a mile or two to turn off into the veldt and search in different directions. It was a sad and subdued party; Mr. Blakeney's distress of mind was too obvious to be ignored, and Guy's usually buoyant spirits were depressed and clouded by anxiety for his cousin's fate. They had cantered two miles along the wagon track, when suddenly Poeskop, who had been staring in front of him, ejaculated in his most cheerful voice, -

"Baas, baas, daar kom Baas Tom! Heep, hurrah!" and, letting off his rifle in his excitement, the little man put spurs to his pony and galloped off. It was true; the Bushman's sharp eyes had caught a glimpse of a figure far ahead of them among the bush. All galloped after him at headlong pace, and in three or four minutes they were off their nags and standing alongside the actual if somewhat dilapidated figure of Tom Blakeney. Mr. Blakeney was first up, in spite of Poeskop's start, and, jumping from his nag, had the boy in his arms and was patting him affectionately on the back.

"My dear, dear old Tom!" he cried. "Thank God you are all right." But Tom was too far gone to speak. He could stand up, it was true, but after forty-eight hours of burning thirst and exhaustion he was speechless. His dry, leathery tongue clove to the roof of his mouth. He tried to ejaculate a word, but failed, and instead pointed to his mouth. Guy was the quickest to relieve him. Unstrapping his water-bottle from the saddle, he unscrewed the stopper and handed Tom some lime juice and water. The fierce, ravenous look in Tom's eyes, as he clutched the bottle, told eloquently enough what he had suffered and how great was his extremity. He took a long draught, and then his father touched his elbow and said gently, -

"Take it by degrees, Tom, or you may do yourself injury. Have a rest now, and take it in nips. Sit you down for a bit." Tom sat down, and they all sat around him. He was a pathetic sight, as he sat there, sipping at the water-bottle. His shirt was torn by thorns, and hung in tatters about him. His cheeks had fallen in, and he looked gaunt and haggard-a strangely altered figure from the fresh and comely lad who had ridden away so gaily from camp just two mornings before. But thirst and anxiety, under a burning sun, will make a wreck of most people in the space of forty-eight hours. At last he could get out a word.

"Thank God, I have reached you," he said. "I thought last night I was never going to see your faces again."

They put him on to Jan Kokerboom's pony, and took him back to the wagons, where there was immense rejoicing all round at the young baas's recovery-for Tom was a general favourite. After more lime juice and water, the lad ate some food and drank some tea; after which he lay down on a blanket, under the shade of a tree, and went fast asleep. Towards sundown he awoke, refreshed, cheerful, and nearly his normal self again. They had a merry supper together, and Tom told them his adventures, of which the reader already knows some part.

"After Rufus had bolted," he said, "and I found I couldn't catch him, I turned back and skinned the cow eland, cut off the head, trimmed it up as well as I could, and made ready a lot of meat. I had fired two shots to try and attract Guy and Poeskop, and I kept thinking they would be riding up. Well, two hours passed and nobody came, and I thought it time to be off. Taking some meat, I started on the spoor of the pony. After following it for nearly three hours, it became so mixed up with a lot of game spoor, and then so faint, that I clean lost it. I hunted about in every direction, and at last had to own myself beaten, although, as you know, I'm a pretty fair hand at the business.

"Well, what was to be done now? 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. Well, it came to sundown that evening, and I knew I was lost. I began to feel uncomfortable. Still, I thought, I shall be all right in the morning, and shall hear guns going or find the road. I wouldn't let myself believe that I was in really a serious mess. I lit a fire and cooked a bit of meat, but I was too dry to make much of a meal. I slept fairly well; but every now and again I awoke with my tongue, throat, and mouth horribly parched, and feeling that I would give anything just for one little glass of clean water.

"Morning came, and I got up and went on my way. I was too thirsty to eat: my tongue, throat, and lips were very much swollen, and the mere action of swallowing was most painful; and so I just tramped on. I took the direction by sun and compass again, but I was this time so 'bushed,' and had wandered so far from where we had started, that I knew it would be a mere chance if I hit off the wagon track again. As for water, there was none, of course, in that miserable wilderness. Nor, at this time of year, was there the least speck of dew-everything as dry as a bone, including myself. Well, I wandered on and on that day, seldom resting, and gradually getting slower and weaker. All the afternoon I tired steadily, and by two o'clock could scarcely drag one leg after another. The veldt was the same: endless bush and mopani forest.

"I rested for an hour, and then, looking at my watch, I determined to walk for another two hours in as straight a direction as I could manage. Of course bush and timber divert one constantly from one's course, but I pushed steadily on at a slow pace. All this afternoon I kept on thinking of pleasant drinks. Cricket matches came constantly to my mind, with huge refreshing draughts of shandy-gaff, and so on. And often I pictured to myself the big dam at Bamborough, and imagined myself wading in up to my neck and drinking till I could drink no longer. My thirst, somehow, was not quite so bad as in the morning, but my mouth and tongue bothered me a great deal-they were just like so much leather-and my throat was horribly sore.

"Well, I marched steadily from three till close on five o'clock; then I felt so done that I sank down on the ground, and lay in a kind of stupor for some minutes. I had done my best. It seemed to me that I was beat, and that the vultures would soon be picking my bones. Suddenly I pulled myself together and looked at my watch, which was still going. It was now five minutes to five. With the three minutes' rest I had taken, I was still short of the two hours' task I had set myself. Somehow a stubborn fit took possession of me. I had said I would walk for two hours. I always had rather a mania for finishing up a task and getting done with it. Feeble as I felt, I determined, in sheer doggedness, to walk another eight minutes. Then I would lie down, and for the rest-well, the worst must come to the worst. So I got up and pulled myself together, and stumbled on. It was a wonderful thing, but my blessed obstinacy saved me. In five minutes I came suddenly on the wagon spoor, going north-east. I could scarcely believe my good luck. I stared at the tracks of the wheels, at the spoor of the good old oxen. Never have I seen anything more beautiful. Then, throwing myself on the sand, I patted the spoor as if it were a friend and a living thing. It seems absurd now, but that is actually what I did.

"Well, the rest is soon told. It was now nearly sunset. I walked on till the light went; then I lay down and slept, waiting for the moon to rise. I awoke just as she climbed up from behind the bush, towards twelve o'clock. Somehow I felt wonderfully better. I knew that I should now see home and friends again, which I had begun seriously to doubt all day yesterday. I could hold the spoor all right in the moonlight, and tramped along slowly and wearily, but still steadily, till four o'clock. Then I rested for an hour and a half. Little did I think I was now within a few miles of camp, or I should have fired a rifle shot. As soon as dawn began to come I walked on again, and then, after twenty minutes, looking up, I saw Poeskop and you, dear old pater, galloping up towards me."

"Well, my boy," said Mr. Blakeney solemnly, "it was a wonderfully lucky escape. This thirst-land is a terrible country to get lost in, and many a man has died of thirst in it and left his bones. I think your sudden resolution to get up and finish your two hours' walk was a kind of miracle. I see the hand of God in it, my boy, and we ought to be, as indeed we are, truly thankful for it. I can't tell you what a load is off my mind. All yesterday and last night I was in an agony of anxiety, wondering what was to become of you."

"If you hadn't taken that sudden resolution to go on for another eight minutes, Tom," said Guy, "should you have ever got up again?"

"No, I don't think I should," returned Tom. "I was so dead beat, and I had practically given up all hope."

"Well, thank God you stuck to your task and went on," said Guy. "Otherwise you might have lain there, and died actually within five minutes' walk of salvation. It's a wonderful thing, whichever way you look at it."

"Yes, I doubt whether Tom would have got through another day," said Mr. Blakeney. "Thirst, in this thirsty country, kills a man. The heat and the terrible anxiety both add to the danger. In most parts of the veldt you know that if you walk for a certain distance you will strike water. Here, if you get bushed, as you easily can, it's a matter of impossibility to find your way to perhaps one waterpit in hundreds of square miles of country. In 1879 a friend of Selous, the famous hunter, a Mr. French, died of thirst in very similar country, near the Chobe River, in less than two days. And in the same year, in the same country, three Kaffirs died of thirst within twenty-four hours of the time they had left the last water. This was in September, before the rains fall, when the heat is always terrific. Thank God once more that you are so well out of it, Tom. I shall always be chary of letting you hunt in thirst country again, and it's a lesson never to go out without full water-bottles. There's just one other thing. Many hunters, including Selous, in hunting in such country, always have a piece of cord fastened to the cheek ring of their horse's bridle, and attached at the other end to the hunting belt. By this precaution, which in future we will all adopt, you can't lose your horse, as Tom had the bad luck to do. I'll see to the cords at once, and to-morrow you shall begin to use them."

They stood at the water, where they were now outspanned, for a full twenty-four hours longer. By this time the oxen and horses, which had suffered a good deal from the trek through the thirst, had recovered. During that day, at Tom's particular request, Poeskop rode back along the wagon spoor with the freshest pony, and recovered and brought in the head of the bull eland which Tom had first shot. It was a magnificent head, and Tom was rightly proud of it; and, in addition, it would be a reminder to him of a very perilous episode in his life history.

Poeskop turned up late at night with the trophy. He found the body of the bull picked nearly clean by vultures. The skin of the head was spoiled, but the horns were, of course, intact, and Tom welcomed them with an exceeding great joy.

Taking five shillings from his purse, he gave it to the little Bushman. "There, Poeskop," he said; "you've done a good day's work, and I'm much obliged to you. I can see by the look of the pony that you've had a tough ride of it."

The Bushman, tired though he was, grinned his hugest and most pleasant grin.

"The baas is very welcome," he said, "and I am well paid for my trouble. And when the baas gets home again and sticks up the horns, as he says he will, he will remember Poeskop and the hunt in the thirst-land."

"Yes, that I will, Poeskop," said Tom quickly. "You're a good fellow to bring in the head. It's a fine one, isn't it?"

"Ja, Baas Tom," added Poeskop; "a right good head. That eland was a big, full-grown bull, seven years old at least."

They trekked next morning, and, travelling for two days over more open country, reached a picturesque region of hills and kopjes. It was among these hills that a somewhat singular adventure overtook them. Tom, who had quite recovered his spirits, had been out with his father, Guy, and Poeskop in search of klipspringer. They had bagged a brace of these charming little antelopes, and were now passing through a poort or pass to another range of hills. On the rocky heights above a troop of baboons barked angrily at them, from the shelter of some dark bush and greenery, through which their hideous, satyr-like faces could be occasionally seen.

"Shall I have a shot at one, uncle?" said Guy. "It would serve the brutes right for making that hideous row. One might think the place belonged to them."

"No, don't fire, Guy," answered Mr. Blakeney. "They're troublesome rascals; but they won't interfere with us, and it's a pity to waste a cartridge. After all, they are so seldom molested here that I suppose they consider the place belongs to them. Here they are harmless. Down in Cape Colony they are a pest, and one is bound to get rid of them. Years ago some baboon discovered that the milk paunch of a young kid was a pleasant thing to devour. His discovery spread, and farmers now lose hundreds of unfortunate goats, killed in this way by baboons. And so they have to be shot or poisoned, or otherwise got rid of. They're artful brutes, and very difficult to circumvent."

Guy and Tom looked rather longingly at the big apes, running excitedly through the bushes above them, and making the while a most unpleasant din. Presently they crossed the smooth, sandy bed of a periodical stream. Here Poeskop, who was a little ahead, halted, and began to examine the ground very curiously. An exclamation or two escaped him. He moved forward, took a turn towards the hillside, and came back.

"What is it, Poeskop?" asked Mr. Blakeney, who had been watching the little man curiously.

"Come with me, baas," said the Bushman, with a puzzled look on his face. "I will show you a strange thing." They walked forward, and Poeskop directed their attention to the spoor of some animals which had been moving about the valley. "What does the baas see?" queried the Bushman.

"I see the spoor of baviaans [baboons]," answered Mr. Blakeney, examining the soil.

"Yes," broke in Tom, "baboons, right enough. But what's this? – something besides baboons."

Mr. Blakeney and Guy moved forward to where Tom stood, and saw instantly that other footprints were mingled with those of the great apes. Mr. Blakeney stooped, and examined critically the smooth sand and the whole tracery of footprints displayed so clearly.

"It's a strange thing," he said, half to himself; "but one could almost swear that here was the spoor of a child."

He glanced sharply at Poeskop, who had remained silent, but was now regarding him with an odd smile on his yellow face.

"Yes," said the little Bushman, in response to his master's look; "that is the spoor of a child-a baboon boy!"

"A baboon boy, Poeskop?" reiterated Mr. Blakeney. "What do you mean?"

"Well, baas," answered Poeskop, "I mean this. We Bushmen, and other natives of this country, know that sometimes the baboons carry off a child and bring it up with them, and the creature lives with them and grows wild and picks up their habits. It is not often that it happens, but it does sometimes. There is a baboon boy here, among these hills-that is certain. Here, you see, is his spoor, as plain as daylight. There are his footmarks, and there the prints of his fingers. He runs on all fours, just like a baviaan."

"It seems a queer yarn," said Mr. Blakeney, looking at the spoor musingly, "and I never heard of such a thing before. Can it be true? What becomes of the poor thing?"

"Well, baas," answered Poeskop, "I don't think they often grow up. The life is too hard for them. But my father once told me that he knew of a wild man who lived among the baboons, far away yonder" – the Bushman pointed north-east-"and was called the King of the Baboons. He was killed by a native tribe, who began to be afraid of him and the apes he lived with."

"A strange story, indeed," said Mr. Blakeney. "Well, we can't let this poor wretch stay with these baboons. We must hunt them up and try to get hold of him."

"It will be a tough job, baas," said Poeskop; "but we will try."