orn-tack means
of defence requires some skill and physical effort to wield with effect
against a full-grown and thoroughly savage male ostrich.

"_Ja_, Baas. He is real _schelm_," returned Gert, who had been standing
behind his master throughout the tussle. "But he has had enough."

It seemed so. The defeated monster, baulked and cowed, sullenly
withdrew, and, shambling off, promptly encountered a weaker rival in the
shape of one of his own kind, which he incontinently went for, and
consoled himself for his own rout by rushing his fleeing inferior all
over the camp, and then, gaining the wire fence, went down on his
haunches, and wobbled his silly head and fluttered his silly wings in
futile challenge to another cock-bird on the further side of that
obstruction, whose attention had been attracted by the row, and who was
coming down to see what it was all about.

"Now to look at that jackal-trap, Gert. Ah, here it is--and, sure
enough, here's Mr Jack."

There came into view an iron trap, which, when set, had been level with
the ground, deftly covered with loose earth, and baited with half a
hare. It was placed in the thick of a bush so as to be inaccessible to
ostriches, to protect whom it was there, and as they came up, a jackal,
securely caught by the forelegs, struggled wildly to get free, snarling
in fear and pain, and displaying all its white teeth.

"Poor little brute," said Colvin. "Here, Gert, give it a whack on the
head with your kerrie and send it to sleep. _Toen_! look sharp.

"That's the worst of these infernal traps," he went on, as a
well-directed blow terminated the destructive little marauder's hopes
and fears. "But it has got to be, or we shouldn't have an egg left."

"_Ja_, Baas. That is quite true," assented the Griqua, to whose
innermost mind, reflected through those of generations of barbarian
ancestry, the idea of feeling pity for a trapped animal, and vermin at
that, represented something akin to sheer imbecility.

"Gert," said Colvin, as they got outside the ostrich camps, "get up one
of the shooting-horses--Punch will do--and saddle him up. I am going
over to Ratels Hoek."

"Punch, sir? Not Aasvogel?"

"_Jou eselkop_! Did I not say a shooting-horse? Aasvogel would run to
the devil before if he heard a shot. He'd run further now since the
joke up yonder with Gideon Roux."

"_Ja_, sir. That is true"; and the Griqua went away chuckling. He had
been poking sly fun at his