"This ain't the place to bring in his name, for I didn't know him then. I tell you it was smart work tracking him through the woods, over the hills, inter the kloofs, but Abe Pike did it sure enough, and he tracked the white man, though he were half starved and lamed in the arm, by gosh. Many a time that day, when my back ached from the bending of it, and my stummick was jammed together for want of something to eat, many a time I thought of the three of us strung out in the dark woods like tigers on the scent. Hungry, by gum! I jest chewed leaves as I went along; and sore--thunder--I kin feel now the throbbing of the wound in my arm. But I kep' on. I tell you, young Abe Pike was tough as _foreslag_, and he wern't going to cave in while that red Kaffir boy was keepin' up. The chap in the lead, the man in _veldschoens_ who was escaping, must a been made o' iron too, I reckon, for he only stopped once the second day, when he ate some bread. There was some crumbs on the yearth among the grass, with the ants over 'em where he'd sat and ate, and the dry skin from a piece o' _biltong_. I took a chew o' elephant leaves, and bymby in the afternoon I seed little balls of pith, which showed the Kaffir had cut off a _insengi_ root to chew. The white man kep' on for twenty miles, keeping to the woods all the time where he could, and the Kaffir kep' on arter him, and Abe Pike he kep' on arter the Kaffir. If it hadn't a been for that _insengi_ root I'd a lost the spoor clean, for there were a big stretch of rock veld where they passed over, and all I could follow was white balls of chewed root. I dunno how the Kaffir picked up the trail on that stretch. He must ha' smelt it. There were a bit o' hill to climb, and when I reached the top my head swam, an' I pitched down like a log. When I opened my eyes it were dark, and my bad arm was doubled up." "You gave up?" "Sonny; you didn't know young Abe--no, you didn't. But I did. And I tell you, for all his emptiness, he jes' kep' on. Yes, sir--he did that I said the darkness were down, but when I looked aroun' I seed the glimmer o' a spark down below, an' I kep' my eyes on it whiles I crawled down the steep of the hill to the kloof below. Things happen sometimes, sonny, in a way that makes you very quiet an' thoughtful. A bird flew up--a grey-wing partridge, I guess, from the whirr--and, searchin' around, I found its eggs. They put life into me, and I steadied up--but what's all this I'm telling you about? There's work to be done, and if you don't stir 'twill be sun-down and too dark. As for me, I'm going to boil the kettle." "But you've not finished telling about the spooring." "Ah, well, it can wait, sonny; but it's time the kettle were put on and the mealies roasted." CHAPTER TWENTY ONE. THE BOOM OF THE DRUM. "Oh, ghoisters!" said Abe, "there's the blamed bung come outer the _vaitje_ and not a drop of Dop left, and all the _buchu_ collected for the soaking."