II.

_UP IN THE MORNING._

YES, Jack left his father writhing on the ground and ran away. But it was to find Tottie. Ah, where was Tottie? Jack reached the hut, and it was empty.

Suddenly the two men looked up and missed him, and the shouts for the "The child! the child!" roused poor Tottie from her hiding-place.

At the first alarm she had crept into the "sloot," that is, the deep ditch which ran round the back of the farm. But the thought that Jack was missing conquered her terror, and she crawled out, plastered with mud from head to foot.

No one could have taken her for a woman; for she crept on her hands and knees, listening with her ear to the ground, as she heard the patter of the sheep, and felt sure that the thieves were driving them away. She was the first to catch sight of Jack coming out of her hut, and made signs to him to hide himself. He darted back into the corner of the hut, crouching in the dark, and waited while the sheep went by.

He heard his father's voice shouting "Jack!" round the burning house, but he dared not answer.

After a while, Tottie, still crawling on her hands and knees, peeped in at the door to see if he were safe. How she hugged him in her joy at their great deliverance, for she assured him that the thieves were gone; yet they dared not venture forth too soon. Tottie lay with her ear to the ground, almost afraid to breathe, listening to the roar of the flames and the falling of the rafters. A stealthy step was drawing near the hut; a gasping sigh was heard in the very doorway. Jack clung to Tottie now and shivered. A head was put in at the door. It was his father.

"Safe! All safe!" was echoed from lip to lip, as the four seated themselves on the ground, for the white-haired Hottentot was behind his master.

Then Tottie got up and found some food and water that were in the hut, and pressed them all to eat.

"The utmost we can do now," said Jack's father, "is to protect ourselves. The thieves must take what they will."

"They are gone," cried Tottie.

But the cautious old Hottentot dared not believe her; so they sat still and listened until the day began to break. Jack's head was resting on his father's shoulder but no one slept.

The flames were over but a dull, red glow still lit up the gray of the western sky when Mr. Treby ventured forth to reconnoitre.

The sheepfold and the shed were still standing, but not one lamb was left. His house lay in ruins. Every leaf in his garden which the sun had spared was burned and blackened with the fire.

But the agony of the night, when for one brief hour his scarcely-rescued Jack was missing, made him think far less of the actual loss than he would otherwise have done.

He fed the oxen, which were still lowing in the stalls, and dressed his blistered arms with a handful of their meal, thankful to find the little hut he used as a store still standing.

He had gone the round of the farm, and was slowly returning, when something moving on the other side of the sloot attracted his attention. Keeping a keen lookout, he crossed the ditch with his rifle on his shoulder, when he saw Vickel stretching out her long legs and gaping. His own shirt was dropping into tinder, and her beautiful gray wings were singed and shrivelled.

At the sound of her master's voice, the frightened bird ran after him, and tucking her head under his arm, expressed her consternation by sundry hoarse screams as he took her back with him to the Hottentot's hut.

Up sprang Jack, almost as overjoyed to find Vickel safe as his father had been to find him uninjured on Tottie's lap.

"Never so bad but it might be worse," said Jack's father, stroking the curly head more fondly than ever. "Jump on Vickel's back and ride after me, for I cannot bear you out of my sight. You could not know what you were doing to run away from me as you did in the night. You might have been killed."

"I was looking for Tottie," said Jack repentantly. He was afraid that he had made his father angry; for Mr. Treby turned his head away, but it was to brush the tears from his eyes, as he murmured,—

"God bless you, my brave, true-hearted boy!" Then he added with a laugh, "We must all to work. The first thing is to ask our neighbours to help us to get back the sheep. I shall send the Hottentot to Scarsdorp. Tottie must watch the ruins. She is better able to take care of herself than you think, for you can't beat her at hide-and-seek. Then you and I, Jack, must take the ox-waggon, and try the temper of our neighbour the Boer. We English do not reckon them the best of friends, for they do not want us here. But I found a stray cow of his last year, so he owes me a good turn."

Jack felt like a man as he followed his father from place to place, sometimes riding on Vickel's back, sometimes jumping down when he thought he could help in his father's preparations. He filled a sack with mealies, as they call the Indian corn, ready to feed the oxen by the way.

Soon after the sun had risen, whilst the morning air blew cool and fresh, Jack was seated by his father's side in the front of the big, lumbering ox-waggon. Everything which Mr. Treby had been able to save from the fire was packed inside, for he was afraid to leave them in an open shed, with no better guard than Tottie.

The fowls had all been scared away by the sight of the flames, and were wandering at will amongst the low bushes which dotted the plain they were crossing.

The sky above their heads was one unclouded blue, and in the red sand which covered the plain the dusty ants were fighting.

It was no easy matter to find the right path in such a wilderness of sand and bush, where there were no hills or trees to serve as land-marks. Jack's father had to look carefully on the ground for the ruts which had been made by the wheels of the post-cart.

Jack knew that post-cart well with its six gray horses. It was their one link with the outward world. How often he had stood beside his father listening for the loud blast of the bugle which heralded its coming! For the arrival of the English mail is a day of joy to the colonist.

Presently Jack's father looked up and pointed with his whip to a heavy cloud of dust.

"It is the mail!" he exclaimed. "For once I am fortunate."

"No, father," persisted Jack, who was looking the other way; "I am positive it is Vickel."

Nearer and nearer came the storm of dust thrown up by the galloping horses, but Jack's eye was fastened on a light-gray figure skimming above that billowy sea of reddening sand.

Mr. Treby drew his waggon out of the path and halted. As the Pretoria mail-cart came in sight, with its usual freight of passengers filling the seats and even clinging to the sides, Mr. Treby waved his handkerchief, and the six powerful grays drew up, stamping and snorting.

"Any letters for me?" he asked anxiously.

"Any mischief doing in this neighbourhood?" was the answering inquiry, as Mr. Wilton, the postman, opened his bag and sorted over its contents for an English newspaper.

"We noticed an uncommon glow in the sky at our last halting-place," put in one of the passengers.

"A little past midnight," added another.

"We have kept a sharp lookout as we came along," continued the postman. "We were all of one opinion—there was a fire somewhere out on the veldt," for so the great African plains are usually called.

"A fire!" repeated Mr. Treby bitterly. "Look yonder, where the smoke-wreath rises above a smouldering ash-heap, where last night, gentlemen, you would have seen a happy home—my home," he repeated in tones that wakened the sympathy of his auditors.

For in those far-off wilds, Englishmen meet as brothers. Each is ready to help the other; for who can tell that, in the next turn of fortune's wheel, their own need may not be as pressing.

Grave and anxious faces were turned to Mr. Treby, and many a deep-voiced exclamation of anger and pity interrupted his account of the night-attack upon his farm.

"It is the beginning of a general rising among the Kafirs," said one.

"A very ominous occurrence," observed another, shaking his head.

"I'll do as you desire," promised Wilton. "I'll gallop on to Pretoria as hard as my horses can go and lodge the information with the captain of the mounted police. Had not you better come too?"

"No," returned Jack's father; "the journey would be too long for me. I was a poor man yesterday; to-day I'm but ten steps from beggarhood. I am on my way to warn my neighbour, Van Immerseel. He counts his sheep by the thousand, and the next attack may be upon them. It was the sheep the villains wanted; and I had no help on the farm but one old Hottentot and his wife, so that I was single-handed against five. They thought to stop my rifle by flinging the firebrand on the thatch; and indeed they gave me enough to do to rescue my little boy from the flames."

"Cheer up, old fellow," said one, "and tell us what we can do for you."

"A round of shot and a coat, if it is not asking too much," ventured Jack's father. "I shall be able to dig out something from the ruins as the ashes cool; but my bullets will be melted into one lump by this time and my money into another."

There was despair in the laugh with which this was said, but it was the despair of a brave man who, when he feels the wreck of hope, still works on.

More than one shot-case was opened and the contents divided, before Mr. Treby had finished speaking.

"What will you take for the fore ox with the crumpled horn?" asked a dark-haired man, who was holding on by the side of the post-cart.

"Market price," answered Jack's father eagerly.

Of course there was a show of disputing over the worth of the stalwart beast, after the usual fashion of buyers and sellers; but it did not last long. Mr. Treby unyoked the leader from his team and tied him by a long rope to the back of the post-cart.

While the stranger was counting out the ten pounds in English money, which he finally agreed to give for the ox, Vickel overtook the waggon. She flew wheeling round and round for a while, drawing nearer with every circle, until Jack, who had been listening most eagerly to the conversation, perceived her manœuvres. So, whilst his father was busy with the ox, he crept to the back of the waggon, and parting the heavy tilt, took her in.

Vickel sprang up eagerly enough at the sight of her Jack's face; but when she felt the waggon move she was frightened.

Jack's arm was round her neck in a moment, as if he thought he could hold her against her will.

"I'll keep you somehow, Vic," he whispered. "You have grown such a big chick I can't hold you. Come, you must go; bye-bye."

Pushing his fingers through a little hole in the sack of mealies, he got a few in his hand, and whilst she was picking them up, he slipped off one of his stockings. He poured another handful of the mealies into it and held it before Vic. Down went the long beak, snapping at the corn, which slipped lower and lower in the stocking. This was just what Jack wanted.

"You good old darling!" he exclaimed, pulling it right over her head and half-way down her long neck, until it fitted. The big bird became as passive as a dove. She folded her long legs under her and sat down on the sack of mealies. Much elated with his success, Jack climbed on to her back and held the stocking fast with both hands.

"Well done, my little man," said a diamond-digger who had been watching him from the back of the post-cart. "You've learned the trick of the ostrich-catchers, I can see."

"She is mine," answered Jack proudly. "She has followed me right across the veldt like a dog."

"And what shall I give you for her?" asked stranger, shaking some gold in his hand.

"I sell Vickel!" exclaimed Jack in anger and disgust. "No, never."

Mr. Treby hesitated for a moment. "In such a strait as ours, Jack—" he began.

Jack looked up into his father's face, and burst into a flood of tears.

"No, I can't do it, gentlemen; it would break his heart. I can't part them. She has been his only playfellow, you see. Thanks, many, all the same," added Mr. Treby, turning to the kindly passengers.

There was a broad grin on the diamond-digger's face; but the postman laughed good-naturedly. "How about the coat?" he asked.

"I can pay for it now," put in Jack's father, "if any one of you could accommodate me."

But not for love or money could a coat be obtained, simply because not one of those travel-stained, way-worn travellers had a second with him.

"Passengers by the Government mail from Natal to Pretoria have for the most part to leave their luggage behind them for the transport-rider's waggon," explained the postman. "Is there anything I can bring you from Pretoria as I return?"

Jack's father considered a moment or two, counted the money in his hand, and dictated a short list of necessaries, which the postman wrote down in his pocket-book.

As he gathered up his reins, he tossed a broken biscuit to the sobbing child, and with a chorus of farewell wishes from the passengers, set off his horses at a rattling pace. The lumbering waggon was soon distanced.

Mr. Treby saw the passengers lean forward in anxious discussion; and many a backward glance was cast upon the burnt rags, which were dropping from him at every step. But he knew that his wants would not be forgotten; and more than that, his warning would be faithfully given to every farm-house on their route.

He was lost in his own thoughts, whilst Jack munched his biscuit in silence, watching his father's troubled countenance.

A groan burst from Mr. Treby's lips as the post-cart was lost to sight, and not a sight or sound of human being disturbed the stillness of that vast treeless plain.

Then two small fearless arms were clasped about his neck, and little loving kisses covered his bearded face as Jack whispered, "Did you really mind me keeping Vickel?"