Piet told them what he had seen; it was little enough, and he had no key to its meaning. Susanna, having helped to lay the spare rifles and the ammunition ready, had gone back to her fire, for pots must be watched though the veld were alive with enemies. The men, each standing on a wagon wheel, searching the country with keen eyes, turned the thing over in their minds. "You are sure he was white, father?" asked Jan. Piet was quite sure. "And he had no gun?" "No," replied Piet. "He had nothing in his hands at all." They spoke without turning their heads or ceasing for an instant in the watch they kept. "Then," said Klein Piet, with assurance, "it must be the English. Only the English go about without guns in a wild country, and collect taxes." The explanation seemed reasonable to them all; they would have been less dismayed if a black foe had shown himself in force. The feeling that dragged the Boer people up by the roots and set them trekking into the unknown was no mere antipathy to taxation; it was founded on an abiding mistrust and hatred of the English who were multiplying in the land. Piet's strong face took on an added grimness as Klein Piet's explanation forced itself on him. "But perhaps," suggested Andries, the youngest, "it is just an Englishman on trek. He would not trouble us." That was a comfortable thought, too. Piet kept his boys on watch for another hour, but nothing showed, and then they ate quickly, and he disposed them for a search. It was all done in good order and after the approved fashion; as each moved forward, his retreat was covered by another's rifle; and between them they scoured all the broken ground within a couple of miles. "Well," said Piet at last, when the search was over and they had not found so much as a spoor of a foot, "this is a wonderful thing." "You are sure it was a man you saw?" asked Klein Piet, doubtfully. "The sun plays tricks with a man's eyes, sometimes." But Piet was not to be shaken. "As sure," he said, "as I am here. But what kind of man--" he broke off, frowning. "There is nothing for it," he added, "but to go on with the work and be wary." "Yes, the work." Klein Piet turned to him. "When you came back from the spruit, we had just found a curious thing where we were digging." "An iron cross," put in young Andries. "A cross?" repeated the father. "It is not a cross," said Klein Piet, quickly. "It is--something else. Come and see it, father." They had been talking together outside their laager, and now they went across to the great pit that the lads and the kafirs had dug to plant the house in. The digging was not yet all done, and where the morning's labor had ended, Klein Piet pointed to the thing of which he had spoken. Only a part of it was uncovered--two curving, spade-ended arms of rust-red iron, and a shaft which stuck out of the earth. "Is that not a cross, father?" cried Andries. "See, it has arms and----"