feeding grounds on the high lands above, to other pans that lay some
miles below, and thence, I suppose, straight out to the sea coast,
whence they returned at dawn.

On arriving at the mouth of Groote Kloof about four o'clock in the
afternoon, my father and I were astonished to see a great number of
Boers assembled there, and among them a certain sprinkling of their
younger womankind, who had come on horseback or in carts.

"Good gracious!" I said to my father; "if I had known there was to be
such a fuss as this about a shooting match, I don't think I could have
faced it."

"Hum," he answered; "I think there is more in the wind than your match.
Unless I am much mistaken, it has been made the excuse of a public
meeting in a secluded spot, so as to throw the Authorities off the
scent."

As a matter of fact, my father was quite right. Before we arrived there
that day the majority of those Boers, after full and long discussion,
had arranged to shake the dust of the Colony off their feet, and find a
home in new lands to the north.

Presently we were among them, and I noticed that, one and all, their
faces were anxious and preoccupied. Pieter Retief caught sight of me
being helped out of the cart by my father and Hans, whom I had brought
to load, and for a moment looked puzzled. Evidently his thoughts were
far away. Then he remembered and exclaimed in his jolly voice:

"Why! here is our little Englishman come to shoot off his match like a