The next two days were spent very agreeably in shooting expeditions into the wild country beyond the plantation. Captain Goltermann turned out to be a crack shot, and the greater number of the antelopes and buffaloes which the sportsmen brought down fell to his gun. Tom was all anxiety to get a shot at a lion or even an elephant, which Reinecke told him were to be found in parts of the Plateau; but the Germans were indisposed to take the long journeys that were necessary to reach the habitats of these more dangerous game: Goltermann’s visit was to be only a short one. One trifling incident of these days was to have an important bearing on Tom’s fortunes. Captain Goltermann had shot an antelope, but, with less than his usual skill or luck, had only wounded it. Determined not to lose his prey, he followed, accompanied by the others, over a stretch of hilly country, dotted with bush, tracking the animal by its blood-stains into a deep nullah through which a stream flowed. The sportsmen caught sight of it at last, drinking at the border of a lake, the source of the stream. Goltermann had just raised his gun to give the _coup de grâce_ when the antelope suddenly sank into the water and appeared no more. "We have provided a meal for a crocodile," said the captain with a shrug. "The slimy sneaking reptile!" "It was bad luck for you, Goltermann," said Reinecke. "The beast was hopelessly trapped; there’s no exit from this end of the nullah. Our long tramp for nothing!" Naturally, it was not until the captain had left that Tom broached the business that had brought him from England. "Now that we have come into my father’s property," he said on the third morning at breakfast, "my brother and I thought it just as well that I should take a trip out and see things on the spot. He explained that in his letter." "Naturally," said Reinecke. "It is what I should have done myself." "Of course," Tom went on, "I’ve only had a year’s business training--in Germany, by the way: and I know nothing whatever about coffee: but I know two and two make four, and I’m sure if you’ll be good enough to go into things with me, I’ll soon get the hang of them. If the plantation can’t be made to pay, there’s only one way out--sacrifice our interest. On the other hand, if there’s a chance of success, I thought perhaps I might stay on here and become a planter myself: it’s a life I think I should take to." "Excellent," said Reinecke. "I am very glad you have come. And if you can suggest some means of making the place pay--well, need I say I shall be delighted. What with poor crops and low prices, and the heavy costs of carriage, it is difficult to wring from it even the small, and I confess unsatisfactory margin which I have been able to show since the plants came into bearing."