Oscar worked late over the leopard that night, and when his task was finished lay down in his cot and went to sleep, lulled by the roaring of the lions and the laughing of the hyenas.
He smiled whenever he thought how terrified he was when he first heard those sounds. Now he paid no more attention to the lions than he did to the prairie wolves that howled about his camp when he was journeying to and from the foot-hills.
When he awoke the next morning the Dutchmen were in motion. They did not like such a neighbor as Oscar had shown himself to be, and were going off to hunt up another fountain, at which they could rest their cattle and fill their water-butts in peace.
"Good riddance," thought Oscar while he performed his ablutions in the bucket which he always found waiting for him, filled with fresh water. "I know now that I did just right last night. If they had found that I was afraid of them they would have taken full control of that pool, and I could have taken my choice between seeing my cattle perish of thirst and inspanning and hunting up another water-hole. Now what shall I do to-day?"
This question and the discussion of the breakfast that McCann had served up for him occupied Oscar's attention during the next twenty minutes, and the coffee was finished and a decision reached at about the same moment.
To begin with, there was no earthly use in hunting in the direction in which the Boers had gone, for they would scare all the game along their route.
He would spend the day on the other side of the water-course and try to shoot another of that herd of koodoos (he had already forgotten the firm resolution he had made that he would never again try stalking under an African sun), for he wanted to secure two of each variety of the _fauna_ whenever he could get them.
So he gave the necessary orders, and in a quarter of an hour more he and Thompson were ready for the hunt. This time they each carried a canteen filled with water, and all the dogs went with them.
This was another fatiguing day for Oscar, but, on the whole, it was an exciting and glorious one. He succeeded in shooting another fine specimen of the antelope tribe, and was the involuntary spectator of a scene he would not have missed for a good deal, but which he would not willingly have witnessed again at so close quarters under any consideration.