"No; what I did was a cirkimstance which only one man would think of, and that's ole Abe Pike. I jes' took out my ole pipe, wriggled a length of straw down the stem till it were black with nicotine, then laid it across his tongue. My! You should 'a seen him. He shook his head, tried to wipe his tongue with his paws, then give a roar, and make lightning tracks for the nearest water. His growl set the dogs going tremenjus, then I yeard ole man Hill whistlin' 'em, and I fetched a yell that brung him up at the double. By gum! In being saved I were nearly killed!" "How was that?" "Why, them dogs took me for the tiger, and they tore the coat offin me, beside some skin, 'fore ole Bill see who were in the trap and took me out. That's why I say I'm dead sot against traps with teeth." CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT. ABE AND THE EAGLES. I had not seen old Abe Pike for some weeks, having been on rinderpest guard on the Orange River, but on my return to the coast I rode over to Gum Tree Farm, where the lone blue-gum threw its pillar of cloud, in the blazing afternoon, across the doorway. Uncle Abe was lounging, as usual, by the doorway, looking listlessly at the sea. "Well, oud baas! How goes it?" "Is there no more cattle to kill?" he said, straightening his back and propping himself against the wall. "Think you'd be ashamed to look a beefsteak in the face after the way you been shooting them pore animiles!" "The plague must be stamped out, Abe." "Oh, yes! I yeard that story before! It's a good way to save a crittur's life by shooting him! What beats me is why you don't up and shoot all children sick with tyfust and grown people ailing with influenza! My gum! I'm ashamed of you!" "Well, so long!" "You ain't goin'?" "I think so; the work of shooting cattle is not pleasant, but it is less pleasant to be reminded of it." "Oh, go along! Put your horse in the shed and come right in. The place ain't been the same since you've been away, sonny; 'sides, there's been no one along for weeks, and I'm jes' bu'sting with talk. You wouldn't like to see old Abe die of untold yarns." So I off-saddled and knee-haltered the horse, for there was no oat-hay in the shed for him, and he had to get what picking he could from the old lands, yellow with charlock. Abe made up the fire, and put on the kettle to boil, while from the larder he produced a slab of pork and a half-loaf--very black on the outside and very soft within. "The last batch of baking," he said, "was not up to the mark. The yeast gave out, and I were obliged to get a rise out of a handful of rub-rub berries. As for the pork, that came from a pig that was catched." "What sort of pig?" "Well, sonny, it was this way. You know the eagles' nest on the old yellow-wood in the big kloof? I got the pig out of there." "Oh, you did, did you? As far as I remember, the tree is a hundred feet high, and the nest quite sixty feet up. The pig climbed up, I presume?"