They fired together. The next moment there was a terrific roar, a crash as of shattered match-wood, and they knew that the infuriated captive had burst through the walls of the trap, stout as they were. They fired another shot in the direction they supposed him to have taken, and then, vexed and disappointed, returned to their tent. They found next day that the lion had been wounded. Bill traced it by the stains of blood upon the ground. But its injuries were plainly not very serious, for the track failed at a patch of reeds a mile up the river, and the Englishmen had to digest their chagrin that the troublesome beast was still at large. Their efforts, however, had not been wholly unsuccessful. The nocturnal visitations ceased, and since no roaring was heard it appeared that the lions had been scared from the neighbourhood. CHAPTER THE SEVENTH--John runs the Farm Within three months of Mr. Halliday’s arrival at his farm, which he named Alloway after the village of his father’s birth, the place had assumed the orderly appearance of a prosperous settlement. The knoll was crowned by a neat bungalow; two hundred yards below it stood two wooden huts appropriated to Said Mohammed and the mistris; at some distance from this a row of cattle-sheds had been erected; and beyond these stood the grass huts of Wasama and his son and Lulu the negress, these being all who remained of the original party. Pens had been made for the sheep and goats; about twenty acres of land had been prepared for planting when the rains began; and a dairy had been started, being cut out of the side of the knoll on which the bungalow stood, for the sake of coolness and protection from the sun and dust. The work of the Indians being finished for the present, Mr. Halliday thought of paying them off; but reflecting that more fencing would be needed by and by, as well as lambing-pens and cattle-sheds as the stock increased, he decided to retain the men, even though he could not make full use of them. It chanced one day that a Swahili came to the farm with a letter from Mr. Gillespie, enclosing one addressed to Mr. Halliday, and bearing the Glasgow postmark and a date nine weeks back. The flap of the envelope bore the name and address of a firm of lawyers unknown to Mr. Halliday, and he opened the letter with some curiosity mixed with apprehension. "Well now," he exclaimed, as he hastily read it, "this is a pretty fix." "What is it, father?" asked John. "You’ve heard me speak of my uncle Alec--the old curmudgeon who lived by himself and hasn’t spoken to any of his family for twenty years. Well, the poor old man is dead, and these people, Wright and MacKellar, tell me that he left no will, and understanding that I am the next of kin, they urge me to come to Glasgow and make good my title. The letter was written nearly three months ago, and seems by the look of the envelope to have had an adventurous career." "But hadn’t your uncle any children?"