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By the time that Piet and I got back to the wagon it was within an hour of sunset; I therefore decided to remain for the night where we were, the grass being good, and our outspan situated within half a mile of a considerable stream of water with which we should lose touch upon entering the gorge, since the river turned eastward immediately opposite the spot where we were outspanned.
In spite of all the noise Jan was making, April could not fail to hear the indignant cry of his young mistress, and presently the wagon was halted. Jan hastily popped the whip into the wagon and turned back to confront his enemy. "What do you mean by stopping a wagon in the road like this? Outspan money? We have not outspanned and are not going to on your starved old veldt."
It was a good thing that the Commandant made us travel so fast, for we had only just outspanned at Pienaars River the following morning when the khakies' bomb-Maxim began firing at the outposts of General Grobler's Waterberg commando, which was stationed there.
The wet season had begun. Perhaps that was why we did not encounter many other waggons on the way. But one party of emigrants of the labouring class we never really learned where bound trekked on before us, and generally outspanned within sight. There were three rough Englishmen two middle-aged and one quite old a couple of tawdry women, and a young girl. They used to ill-treat the girl.
Then, too although this may seem to be a small matter, still it had weight with all of us the white hunters of the country had ridiculed the idea of our being able to rope a lion, and the prospect of returning and admitting defeat without having been given a proper chance was not pleasant to contemplate. At the Last Water we outspanned for the night and most of the succeeding day.
For instance, on the first day we inspanned at 10.30 A.M. and trekked till within an hour of sundown; at sundown we inspanned, and with one outspan trekked till sunrise; outspanned for two hours, and on again, being seventeen and a half hours under the yoke out of the twenty-four, and covering fifty-five miles.
The oxen were outspanned, and while the Hottentots began unloading the waggon, the Kaffirs, headed by their leader, went along the river, and cut down a number of poles of a soft buoyant wood. These they immediately began to form into a couple of rafts.
Leaving the wagon outspanned on the outskirts of the town, I rode in and called in the first instance upon a certain Mr Henderson, who was a friend of ours, and from him received, as I fully expected, a very cordial invitation to make his house my home during the period of my sojourn in the town.
Such a dupe now trudged at the head of the meagre three-span ox-team. When, after a hard day's toil, he at length outspanned, the waggon-pole still faithfully pointed to the north-west.
As his employer, he tolerated me, and as he was invaluable in many ways, I tolerated him in return, but he had one habit that always annoyed me immensely. In season and out of season he would say: "Yer don't know heverythink if yer thinks yer does!"; and I could never break him of it. Well, the evening that I speak of, we outspanned under the cliffs of Erongo, and the oxen drank deep.
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