Guy rode steadily for five or six miles, at the end of which he discovered that the ostrich had been moving away north-westward, and was still two or three miles distant. Some light bush now hid it from view, and, taking advantage of this screen, Guy pressed on until he saw that he was about to enter upon the plain again. Before issuing from the bush, he got off and carefully examined the country in front of him. Yes, there was the ostrich right enough, feeding quietly less than a mile away. It was a splendid cock bird, and its white plumes, showing up finely against its black body colouring, made Guy long to possess them. Walking his horse out of the covert, Guy now touched the good beast with his spur and galloped for the big bird, hoping to get a shot at it before it had discovered that the approaching object was anything more than a zebra. It was a wild, unfrequented veldt, and surely, argued Guy to himself, an ostrich in these parts would not be very suspicious. Half a mile was covered. He was now within seven hundred yards of the bird; surely he was going to get a fair shot directly. But even as he thus flattered himself, he was discovered. The ostrich’s head went up, and then, with a limp and a flutter of the wing feathers, the bird moved off. It went so lame that Guy at once perceived that something was the matter with it. So much the better--he would have an easy victory. Suddenly, fifty yards in front of him, there rose from the long grass veldt another ostrich, a hen bird manifestly. Nothing ailed her, and she rushed away like a steam engine, covering whole leagues, as it were, in her enormous strides. Guy reached the place whence she had started, and saw, as he expected, a nest full of huge, shining eggs. At a swift glance, as he galloped by, he reckoned that there must have been twelve or fourteen of them. But he had no time to attend to them now; he would ride back that way, and take toll of them as he went to the wagon. For the moment all his energies and attention were centred on the maimed or sick bird in front of him, the magnificence of whose plumes he could now plainly discern.