CHAPTER THREE.
AN OSTRICH RACE.
"I say, Joe, you are right," said Dyke now, with animation. "'Tisn'thalf so hot riding."
"Of course not. One begins to get moist, and the sun and air bring afeeling of coolness. It's only the making a start. Now then, shall Itry to cut him off?"
"No, no!" cried Dyke excitedly; "I'll do it. I'll make the brute run.You follow up."
"Right!" said Emson; "that is, unless he tracks my way."
"Oh, he won't do that," said Dyke, with a merry laugh, and in hisanimation the boy seemed to be quite transformed.
It was a good long ride to where the ostrich they sought to bring backto its pen could be seen stalking about, looking about as big as aguinea-fowl, but gradually growing taller and taller to its pursuers asthey rode on. After a time it ceased picking about and ran first in onedirection and then in another, as if undecided which line of country totake before leading its pursuers a wild race out and across the veldt.
By this time it looked fully four feet high; soon after it was fullyfive, as it stood up with its neck stretched out, and its weak,large-eyed, flat head turned to them with a malicious expression.
The trio now separated, the horsemen riding more and more apart as theyadvanced, till they were each a couple of hundred yards from the Kaffir,who suddenly uttered a warning cry, to indicate that the great bird wasbeginning to run off straight away.
"All right, Jack, I see," cried Dyke; and pressing his cob's sides hewent off at a gallop, not, however, in pursuit of the bird, which ranright forward, with its head turned to watch its pursuers all the time.
Dyke's tactics, the result of experience, were of quite another kind.He turned his cob's head, and went off like the wind at right angles tothe course the ostrich was taking, and the effect was instantaneous.There was all the open veldt, or plain, spreading out for hundreds ofmiles before the bird, and it had only to dart off and leave theswiftest horse far behind. But its would-be cunning nature suggested toit that its enemy had laid a deep scheme to cut it off, and instead ofgoing straight away, it turned on the instant to spin along in the samedirection as that taken by the boy, and get right across him.
"Ah, you silly, muddled-brained, flat-headed idiot!" yelled Dyke, as heraced along over the plain, his steed sending the red sand flying atevery spurn of its hoofs as it stretched itself out. "I'll be therefirst, and cut him off. You can't do it--you can't do it. Ah-h-h-h!"
This last shout, ending in a rattle of the tongue, seemed to stimulatethe little cob to make fresh efforts; and laughing merrily to himself inthe exhilaration of the race, Dyke had only to keep slightly drawing hisleft rein, to make the ostrich curve more and more round towards him,till he had actually deluded the bird into taking the exact direction hewished--namely, right for the pens from which it had escaped.
On sped the cob, running over the sand like a greyhound, and on rushedthe ostrich, its long legs going with a half-invisible twinkling effectlike that produced by the spokes of a rapidly revolving wheel; its wingswere half-extended, its plumage ruffled, and its long neck stretchedout, with its flattened head slightly turned in the direction of therider.
And so they rode on and on, till the low range of buildings in frontbecame nearer, the yellow sunflower disks grew bigger, and the sunglared from the white house. Still the bird saw nothing of this, butcontinued to run in its curve, trying to pass its pursuer, till all atonce it woke to the fact that there was a long range of wire fencebefore it, over which were bobbing about the heads of Joe Emson's flockof its fellows, and there it was with the fence in front, and the twohorsemen and Kaffir behind.
Then there was a change of tactics.
Dyke, who was hundreds of yards in front of his companions, knew whatwas coming, and gave his short-handled rhinoceros-hide whip a whishthrough the air, and then cracked it loudly, while a chorus ofdiscordant cries arose from the pens.
"Give up, you ugly old rascal, or I'll twist this round your long neck,"cried Dyke; and a great chorus arose from the pens, as if the tame birdswithin the wire fence were imploring the great truant to be good, andcome home.
But nothing was further from the great bird's thoughts. It could easilynow have darted away, but it felt that it was driven to bay, and beganto show fight in the most vicious fashion, snapping its flat beak,hissing, snorting, rattling its plumage, and undulating its long neck,as it danced about, till it looked like a boa constrictor which hadpartially developed into a bird.
Then it dashed at its pursuer, snapping at him in its rushes. But thebill was not the thing to mind; a few lashes with the whip were enoughto ward off its attack. The danger to be avoided came from thosetremendous legs, which could deliver kicks hard enough to break a man'sbones.
Three times over did the great bird strike at Dyke, as it was drivendown to the pen with lash after lash of the whip, which wrapped roundthe neck, as the head rose fully eight feet above the ground. Then cameanother stroke which took effect, not upon Dyke's leg, but upon thehorse's flank, just behind the stirrup, in spite of the clever littleanimal's bounds to avoid the kicks.
What followed was instantaneous. The horse whirled round, snorting withpain, and struck out at his enemy, sending out its heels with suchviolence and effect, that they came in contact with one of the ostrich'sshanks, and the next moment the giant bird came to the ground, a heap offeathers, from which the long neck kept darting, and one leg deliveringheavy blows.