"Boer boys are all good marksmen, George. Once I had an older brother David. He was but thirteen--just my age--when the war broke out, and my father, grandfather and great-grandfather all took to horse and gun in defense of their country. You and I were not born then. Young as he was, he shouldered a musket and bravely fought at my father's side until both were killed in the same terrible battle. There was a whole regiment of Boer boys fighting in the war no older than was David. Some were even less. Many were only twelve. And they fought at the side of great-grandfathers of seventy and over. As for big game hunting--I'd like to hear some of your father's exciting experiences hunting in that awful Kalahari Desert, George. Were you with him there long?" "No, Koos--a very short time. I can't bear to talk about it. I never want to see the place again! That terrible Zulu, Dirk, was there! You ought to see all daddy's trophies--beautiful pelts, Koodoo horns, hides, and ivory from many a fine tusker! Daddy had plenty of big game shooting--lions, elephants and everything! Several times he almost lost his life. But all that was before mother died, and Aunt Edith brought me here to father. But I want to go home." "But is the Kalahari Desert as bad as people say?" "Worse! It's just thousands and thousands of miles of burning hot sand. Nothing grows there but a few dried-up low Karroo bushes. My clothes were always all torn up by awful prickly bushes just full of long hack-thorns like fish-hooks." "'Wacht-een-bigte' is what we Boers call them. It is a kind of cactus, or giraffe-acacia bush. The thorns are exasperating!" "And the only water one could get was from salty, hot, muddy pools nearly a hundred miles apart. That is why the place is called 'The Great Thirst Land.' Father says, too, that at night the hyenas came so close that once they stole his clothes as he slept." "W-h-e-w!" exclaimed Koos. George shuddered, as an ebony-faced black approached them. "Now, George, don't be afraid. That's only Shobo, the Bushman. There goes your father and Uncle Abraham riding about the farm together. They have stopped away over by the willows, to watch the Kafirs branding cattle. They drive them inside that fence, fasten the gate, then quickly lasso each beast--one by one--by the hind leg, trip it over, and apply the hot iron. It doesn't really hurt them, you know." "Petrus, what is this we are coming to? Your mealie-fields?" "The mealie-fields, yes, but there's not a blade of corn. The locusts left all uncle's acres as bare as though burnt by a fire." "Do tell me about it, Koos. Couldn't you stop them?"