but I've had a narrow squeak for it!" ejaculated Dick. Then
his glance fell upon Hazel Brandon, who was standing a little in the
background, white and shuddering, and his heart smote him with
self-wrath and contempt. He had thought to show off, and had only
succeeded in frightening her, and making a most egregious ass of
himself.

"Oh, Miss Brandon, I'm so sorry I've given you a scare!" he exclaimed
penitently. "But it's all right now. Come and look at the tiger--such
a splendid beast."

"Well, you did give me rather a fright," she said, with a faint smile,
while the colour returned to her cheeks. "But--what a splendid shot!"

"Wasn't it!" answered Dick, whole-heartedly, at the same time not quite
able to help wishing that the positions had been exactly reversed. He
was conscious, too, that this was the third time Harley Greenoak had
stepped between himself and sure and certain death. The latter was
thinking the same thing, and was more than ever convinced that Sir Anson
had spoken the bare truth in saying that he would find his charge no
sinecure. The while he had drawn his sheath knife and was tucking up
his shirt-sleeves.

"We'll just strip off this uncommonly fine skin, Kleinbooi and I," he
announced imperturbably. "But as it isn't a pleasant process to watch,
I'd suggest that Miss Brandon should wait for us where we left the
horses."

"That's a good idea," said Dick, briskly. "Come along, Miss Brandon.
We'll wait there."

Having thrown off her temporary scare, Hazel turned to her uncle and
rated him soundly for having the trap set at all It was abominably
cruel, she declared, unsportsmanlike too. The old man chuckled.

"Ho--ho! Not bad that, for a girl who's been raised on a farm," he
said. "Don't they ever set traps down at Windhoek then, or has your
father got too many sheep and calves? I can tell you this beast has
been taking toll of mine finely."

"Well, why don't you hunt him then, in fair and sportsmanlike fashion,"
retorted the girl, "instead of setting an abominably cruel thing like
that?"

"Hunt him? Ho--ho! Look there."

He pointed to the upper end of the hollow, which was shut in by a wall
of terraced rock and cliff. But many a dark hole and crack on the face
of this showed that the towering rampart was honeycombed by caves and
labyrinthine galleries.

"How are you going to get him out of these?" went on old Hesketh. "Why,
all the dogs in the world wouldn't get him out.