"Hi Val Come, quick " "What's the matter?" I said excitedly, for my brother Bob came tearing down to the enclosure, sending the long-legged young ostriches scampering away towards the other side; and I knew directly that something unusual must be on the way, or, after the warnings he had received about not startling the wild young coveys, he would not have dashed up like that. "I dunno. Father sent me to fetch you while he got the guns ready. He said something about mounted men on the other side of the kopje, so it can't be Kaffirs. I say, do back me up, Val, and get father to let me have a gun." "Ugh you bloodthirsty young wretch " I cried as I started with him for our place, now partly hidden by the orchard-apple and pear trees-I had helped to plant seven years before, when father really pitched his tent by the kopje, and he, Bob-a little, round-headed tot of a fellow then-Aunt Jenny, and I lived in the canvas construction till we had built a house of stone.