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"Well," said Reynal, "there's old Red-Water, and the Eagle-Feather, and the Big Crow, and the Mad Wolf and the Panther, and the White Shield, and what's his name? the half-breed Cheyenne." By this time we were close to the village, and I observed that while the greater part of the lodges were very large and neat in their appearance, there was at one side a cluster of squalid, miserable huts.
There is little risk with a heifer with her first calf, and I never bleed or physic a heifer in calf, because she has not attained her growth. In her case "the additional nutriment goes to increase of size, instead of becoming the foundation of disease." Red-water is also a very fatal complaint among cows. They generally take it about the thirteenth or fourteenth day after calving.
I could perfectly understand the words, for these people spoke a dialect so akin to Zulu that by now it had no difficulty for me. "Their holy drink!" exclaimed the old fellow, starting back. "Man, it is hot red-water. Would these white wizards poison me with mwavi?"
"No, we have nothing but young cattle left. Both red-water and lung-sickness have been so bad this season that all the horned stock have been swept out of the country. I doubt whether you could beg, borrow or steal a team of oxen this side of Pretoria, except from some of the Dutchmen who won't part." "That's awkward. I hoped to be able to trek in a day or two."
It was the fashion among the old-fashioned farmers on the high-veld to drive the cattle down into the bush-veld which they call the winter-veld for winter pasture. There is no fear of red-water about that season, and the grass of the plains is rich and thick compared with the uplands.
If the cattle had red-water and would bring disease into your herd, or wild bulls that would gore you, and the wives were skinny old widows with evil tongues, then I think you would look as do those men, Hans."
A horse took the staggers, a fine veal calf died of the black-leg, and some of his sheep of the red-water; the cows began to grow vicious, and to kick down the milk-pails, and the roof of one end of the barn fell in; and the farmer took it into his head that Mick Flannigan's unlucky child was the cause of all the mischief.
"Indeed, I thought I remembered your telling me in Africa that the only big game you had ever shot was an ox sick with the red-water. Anyway, shooting is a business with me, not an amusement, as it is to you, and I do not talk shop."
Many farms are almost exempt from this disease. It is very fatal, but if taken in time it can generally be cured; heavy losses are, however, experienced every year by it. I have only had two or three cases of red-water, and I do not therefore enlarge upon it. The veterinary surgeon should be called in instanter. Garget in the udder, or weed, is also to be guarded against.
"Very likely," I replied; "but I want to know what the Indians think about it." So he interpreted my question, which seemed to produce some doubt and debate. There was evidently a difference of opinion. At last old Mene-Seela, or Red-Water, who sat by himself at one side, looked up with his withered face, and said he had always known what the thunder was.
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