no sooner lain down
than he dropped off fast asleep, to be roused by his cousin in the pale
grey dawn to look at the pigmy seated upon a block of stone just outside
the end of the waggon, waiting for the boys to appear, ready to continue
his occupation of the previous day and follow both wherever they went.

"There he is," said Mark. "I don't know how long he means to stop, but
he watches me like a dog. I wish he'd talk, and understand what I say.
He can't half take in what Mak says, and Mak's nearly as bad; but
somehow they get on together, with a few signs to help, and they are
capital friends."

"Dan seems quite to put life into us," said Mark, later on. "One feels
quite different after a good breakfast. He's been begging me to get the
doctor to take him with us as soon as we start to explore."

"Well, you don't want any begging," replied Dean.

"Oh, no, I shall ask; but Bob Bacon has been at me too, and you saw Buck
Denham beckoning to me just now?"

"Yes; but he doesn't want to come, does he?"

"Doesn't he! Why, he began by telling me that Peter Dance had promised
to look after the bullocks and help Dunn. He said he liked driving, but
he was fond of hunting too, and he should like a change now and then."

"Well, let's ask the doctor."

"I have, and he said that he can't take everybody, because everything's
new as yet, and the camp must be protected."

"Well, that's true," said Dean, "and we want to go."

"But it's all right," said Mark. "Father says that he will be glad of a
day's rest, and he will stay and be sentry."

"Now, boys!" cried the doctor just then, and a short time later the well
armed party started to see what they could make out of their strange
surroundings, each of the men carrying now either a billhook or a small
sharp hatchet stuck in his belt.

They soon found though their progress was so impeded by trees and
tangled growth that the doctor turned as much as was possible to what
proved to be kopje after kopje of piled up stones in their natural
state, to find that the rocks were scored with ravine and gully, while
in the higher parts some of these took the form of cavernous hollows
pretty well choked with creepers, vines and thorns, and into which they
could peer, to find darkness, while their voices sounded echoing, hollow
and strange.

Every here and there too they came upon signs that the hollows had been
crossed by piled up stones looking like rough walls, which half cut