tudying the native's rugged features and
shaggy hair and beard. Every now and then there was a rapid winking of
the eyes; but their fierce stare seemed to be uninterrupted, and caused
a peculiar kind of aching and twitching at the back of Nic's eyeballs,
as moment by moment he expected the man would attack.

At last the strain began to be greater than the boy could bear. He had
developed an intense friendship all at once for Leather, and looked
vainly again for his presence there; he would have shouted for him, but
he felt that in the immense space around his feeble cry would not be
heard, and that out there in that savage land he was, early as it
seemed, to have his first lesson in the settler's duty--namely, to fend
for himself.

For Nic could bear the horrible state of suspense no longer. He felt
that he must fight for his life, and that after all the odds were fair.
His enemy was a full-grown, sturdy savage, doubtless well armed, while
he was only a boy, but he had the help of one of civilised man's most
deadly weapons to balance matters.

Then he felt that there was no balance in the matters for the black had
his weapons ready, while he had left his gun out of his reach.

"Only let me escape this time," thought Nic, in a despairing way, "and
I'll never do such a foolish thing again."

The sun beat down upon him, the air around quivered in the heat, and the
locusts kept up a loud chirruping, jarring note which grew maddening.
Then from far away there came faintly the melancholy _baa_ of a sheep
calling plaintively to its missing companions, and directly
after what Nic took to be the call of some wild bird in the
distance--_coo-way_--_coo-way_--and this was answered faintly from
farther off.

The next moment Nic had grasped the fact that it was no bird-call; for
the black's face was puckered up, his eyes nearly closed as his mouth
opened, and he repeated the cry in a wild, shrill, ringing tone twice
more, and then his mouth shut with an audible snap, and he remained
perfectly still again, watching the boy.

But Nic could bear no more. This brought matters to a crisis. It was
the savage's _cooey_, and it meant that others were coming to join this
man. So the boy felt that he must either attack or retreat.

To retreat meant to invite attack, and in his desperation Nic determined
that the braver plan and the one more likely to prove successful was to
take the initiative, and to do this he began slowly and