"So they do," Frank replied; "but the wild feathers are growing scarcer every year, and the traders do not confine themselves to buying them to the exclusion of everything else. A trader starts off with perhaps half a dozen wagons laden with guns, powder, blankets, beads, wire, knives, and other goods that meet the approval of the savage. On his return the wagons are filled with ivory, hippopotamus teeth, rhinoceros horns, and a varied lot of skins of wild animals, in addition to ostrich feathers. Sometimes a single wagon-load will be valued at fifty thousand dollars, and the larger the quantity of ostrich feathers the greater is its value." Fred asked how the feathers were sold, and what was the standard of their value. "They are carefully sorted according to their quality, and then sold by weight. Of course the price varies, like that of any other merchandise, and the business has its ups and downs, like everything else. The finest feathers are sometimes sold for three hundred dollars a pound, and two hundred dollars may be considered a fair price for a first-class article. The plumes from chickens sell for two or three dollars a pound. Between the highest and lowest prices, you see, there is a very wide range." "And you say the people at the Cape raise ostriches now as they would raise horses or sheep, do you?" Fred inquired. [Illustration: DRIVING A FLOCK OF OSTRICHES.] "Certainly I do," was the reply. "Ostrich farming has become a regular business, and a good many men have made fortunes by it. The first experiments were made in 1862. Three years later there were eighty tame ostriches in Cape Colony, and from that time the business grew very rapidly. In 1875 there were about fifty thousand birds in the hands of the farmers of South Africa, and five years later the number had more than doubled. It began in Cape Colony, and has spread through Natal, Transvaal, and the Orange River district, and has become a regular industry, like sheep or cattle raising. The profits are very great, and attempts are now being made to introduce ostrich farming into the United States." Fred asked how the farmers obtained the feathers from the captive birds. [Illustration: THE OSTRICH AND ITS HUNTERS.] "Very easily," Frank answered. "In the old way of hunting the ostrich it was necessary to kill the bird in order to obtain the feathers, and thus he yielded only a single crop. Under the present system the feathers are cut off when 'ripe,' and new ones grow in their places. These are cut off in time, and year after year fresh harvests are made, until the bird is too old to produce more. The first crop is taken when the bird is a year and a half old, and is worth about twenty dollars. After that time the annual yield of a bird is from forty to fifty dollars, and he continues to produce feathers till he is eighteen or twenty years old." [Illustration: HUNTING UNDER DISADVANTAGES.]