hat moment, he was really
angry at them.

Without knowing it, poor brutes! they had likely given him cause for a
good deal of trouble; for it would cost him a good deal, before he could
head the eland again, and get it back into the pass. No wonder, then,
he was vexed a little.

But his vexation was not so grievous as to cause him to fire upon the
approaching herd; and, turning aside, he rode after the eland.

He had hardly left the spot, when the quaggas came out of the pass,
following each other to the number of forty or fifty. Each, as he saw
the mounted hunter, started with affright, and bolted off, until the
whole drove stretched out in a long line over the plain, snorting and
uttering their loud "coua-a-g" as they ran.

Hendrik would hardly have regarded this movement under ordinary
circumstances. He had often seen herds of quaggas, and was in no way
curious about them. But his attention was drawn to this herd, from his
noticing, as they passed him, that four of them had their tails docked
short; and from this circumstance, he recognised them as the four that
had been caught in the pit-trap and afterwards set free. Swartboy, for
some purpose of his own, had cut off the hair before letting them go.

Hendrik had no doubt it was they, and that the herd was the same that
used to frequent the vley, but that on account of the ill-treatment they
had met with, had never since shown themselves in the neighbourhood.

Now these circumstances coming into Hendrik's mind at the moment, led
him to regard the quaggas with a certain feeling of curiosity. The
sudden fright which the animals took on seeing him, and the comic
appearance of the four with the stumped tails, rather inclined Hendrik
towards merriment, and he laughed as he galloped along.

As the quaggas went off in the same direction which the eland had taken,
of course Hendrik's road and theirs lay so far together; and on galloped
he at their heels. He was curious to try the point--much disputed in
regard to horses--how far a mounted quagga would be able to cope with an
unmounted one. He was curious, moreover, to find out whether his own
quagga was quite equal to any of its old companions. So on swept the
chase--the eland leading, the quaggas after, and Hendrik bringing up the
rear.

Hendrik had no need to ply the spur. His gallant steed flew like the
wind. He seemed to feel that his character was staked upon the race.
He gained upon the drove at eve