g all the same.

The dogs, some half-dozen great rough-haired mongrels, lay panting on
the ground. One or two were restless, and showed a desire to start off
upon the yet warm spoor which led into the forbidden place, but a stern
mandate from the Fingo promptly checked this, and they lay down again.

These two, the white man and the black, were standing in a wide
amphitheatre of bush, walled by rocky heights, now split asunder in
gigantic, castellated crags, or frowning down in straight, smooth
krantzes, the nesting-places of innumerable aasvogels; as the long
vertical streaks down their red, ironstone faces could testify. In
front of them, opening out, as it were, through an immense natural
portal formed by two jutting spurs of rock, was a lateral valley,
covered with dense forest and sloping up to a loftier pile of mountain
beyond, the slope ending in a line of broken cliff abounding in holes
and caves. This much was visible from where they stood. But not a step
nearer would the Fingo advance. Dick Selmes looked wistful.

"It was just there he went in, Kleinbooi," pointing to the slope under
one of the jutting rock portals. "I glimpsed him for a minute, just
under the krantz on that bare patch. By Jove, it's a pity to lose a
fine bush-buck ram, and he was hit hard, too. If only you had been
nearer with the dogs!"

"It is time to go home now, Baas," said the Fingo, with a glance at the
sun, which was now dipping low to the skyline, causing the great rock
faces to glow red gold in the slanting beams. The scene was one of wild
rugged grandeur and beauty, softened by the cooing of hundreds of doves,
the cheery piping whistle of spreeuws echoing from among the krantzes,
and other mellow and varying bird-voices in the recesses of the brake.

"Has anybody ever met his death in there, Kleinbooi?" resumed Dick.

"Several, Baas."

"What kills them?"

"That is what nobody knows." And the speaker was so obviously unwilling
to pursue the subject that Dick said nothing further upon it, but he
made up his mind to question Harley Greenoak thereon without loss of
time.

When the two came to where they had left their horses, it was evident
that the hunt had not been altogether unsuccessful, for behind Dick's
saddle was strapped a fine duiker ram, while from that of the Fingo hung
several guinea-fowl and three or four dik-kop. Still, Selmes would not
altogether feel comforted over the quarry he had lost.

This Kle