At dawn, one roseate morning, a yell from the dogs awoke May in time to discover a poor little porcupine scuffling back to his hole. Up jumped Ormsby, who would not wait for May's attack with a short assegai, which he had at hand; lifting his foot, he laid the quarry sprawling on the ground, but not before the animal had driven one of his natural weapons into the thoughtless young man's foot; darting the quill, sharp as a needle, with all his force, the creature left it two inches deep in the instep, and would have returned to the attack, but that May, with a stirrup-leather, laid the enemy dead. Ormsby sat down upon a block of granite, in great agony, and the bushman, after a deliberate survey of the jeopardised limb, remarking, with a gravity that startled even Frankfort, that "the sir must lose either his leg or his boot," opened his clasp-knife, and skilfully and deliberately cut the boot open, then applying his fine but useful teeth to the quill, he tugged at it bravely, and drew it out with a jerk. A clear jet of blood bubbled up from the wound, and Ormsby fainted with the pain. The inflammation which followed was so great as to preclude the possibility of riding far, and as, fortunately, the wagons were only five miles in the rear, Frankfort deemed it wisest to return to them at once, as he well knew Piet would not move in haste. Everything was as they had left it two days previously, although the obstinate old wagoner had been told to follow as soon as the sore-footed oxen had recovered, and they were now fit for their work. There sat Fitje, stitching at her patchwork petticoat; there lay the herd-boys beside the green-bordered vley; and there sat old Piet, in the glow of sunlight, smoking his pipe. CHAPTER SEVEN. LIGHT IN THE WILDERNESS. Ormsby was thoroughly discomfited by his accident, and his impatience, and unwillingness to apply the remedies prescribed by Fitje, duly aggravated the inflammation: he would walk, he would bathe, and at last was fairly laid prostrate for two or three days. Utterly disgusted, and intensely pained by the jolting of the wagon, he listened one morning with complacency to May's information, that there was a Dutchman's farm at the foot of a long, low hill in front. The sun shone down upon the settlement, which at that distance looked fair and pleasant; but May said it was but a desolate place within, for the master was heart-sore. He had lost five sons in the last war; he had but few cattle left; and whenever he began to till the land, he was told by his neighbours--there were none within twelve miles--that it was not safe to stay. The bushman had heard this two months ago from the Boer himself at Beaufort, when he came there, in his perplexity, to consult his fellow-colonists.