warning was not unneeded. The bird seemed only winged and had the
grass been a little thicker would have escaped. As it was, it entailed
upon its destroyer a considerable chase before he eventually knocked it
out with a stone, and then only as it was about to disappear within an
impenetrable patch of prickly pear.

"Well, Stephanus, I believe I'm going to score off you both to-day,"
said Colvin, as he tied the birds on to the D of his saddle with a bit
of _riempje_. "Nothing like a shot-gun in this sort of veldt."

Boers, as a rule, seldom care for bird-shooting, looking upon it as
sport for children and Englishmen. Birds in their opinion are hardly
worth eating, guinea-fowl excepted. When these are required for table
purposes they obtain them by the simple process of creeping stealthily
up to their roost on a moonlight night, and raking the dark mass of
sleeping birds--visible against the sky on the bare or scanty-leaved
boughs--with a couple of charges of heavy shot Stephanus laughed
good-humouredly, and said they would find buck directly. Then they
would see who had the better weapon.

They had got into another enclosure, where the ground was more open.
Colvin had already bagged another koorhaan and a brace of partridges,
and so far was not ill-satisfied. Suddenly Cornelis was seen to
dismount. A buck was running across the open some three hundred yards
away. Bang! A great splash of dust nearly hid the animal for a moment.
A near thing, but yet not quite near enough. On it went, going like
the wind, now behind a clump of bushes now out again. Cornelis had
another cartridge in, and was kneeling down. A wire fence stretched
across the line of the fleeing animal, which would have to slacken speed
in order to get through this. Watching his moment, Cornelis let go.
The "klop" made by the bullet as it rushed through the poor little
beast--through ribs and heart--was audible to them there at upwards of
four hundred yards. It never moved afterwards.

"Oh, fine shot!" cried Colvin, with a grim afterthought to himself,
viewing it by the light of the failure of the Bloemfontein Conference.

"It's a duiker ram, Pa," sang out the young Dutchman. Then he shouted
to the Kafirs to bring it along, and the three moved onward. Soon
Colvin got his chance. A blekbok, started by the tread of Stephanus'
horse, raced right across him at about forty-five yards, broadside on.
Up went the gun, a second's aim, and the pret