at we are all going off in our shooting, and are good
for nothing; that we cannot bring down game like out fathers could."

"_Maagtig_! but they are liars, those English newspaper men," assented
somebody else. "_Nee wat_. I would like to get the miserable
ink-squirter who wrote that, and make him run at five hundred yards from
my Martini. We would soon show him whether we young ones are so
_sleg_."

"Hallo, Marthinus, that's a little too loud," cut in Colvin Kershaw with
a laugh. "Why, man, how about that old springbuck ram I saw you miss
twice running that shoot we had at Tafelfontein at the end of last
season there, _oerkant_, by the vlei? He wasn't a step over four
hundred yards. Come now, what would you do with your runaway man at
five hundred?"

"That's true," assented Marthinus a little crestfallen. Then
brightening up: "But then the English newspaper man would be running too
hard. _Ja, kerelen_. Now, an English newspaper man _would_ run!"

"Do you know how I was taught to shoot, Colvin?" asked a wiry,
middle-aged Boer with a long light beard, pushing his tobacco bag made
of dressed buckskin across to the Englishman. "When I was eight years
old my father used to put a loaded rifle into my hand. It was a
muzzle-loader--we had no Martinis or Mausers in those days. _Maagtig_--
no. He didn't give me a second charge for reloading either. He would
start me out into the veldt at daybreak, and if I returned without
having shot a buck I got no breakfast. Then he would start me off
again, and if I returned a second time without having shot a buck I was
allowed some dinner, but first of all I got plenty of `strop.' Then I
was turned out again, and if I failed again I got still more `strop,'
and went to bed without any supper. But it was not more than two or
three times that happened. _Nee, kerelen_! Well, that is the way to
teach a youngster to shoot."

"That's all very well, Izaak," replied Colvin; "but it might be the way
to teach some youngsters not to shoot. The fact of knowing they hadn't
another chance might get upon their nerves and make them miss."

But the other, whose name was Izaak van Aardt, and who was known amongst
his neighbours as second to none for a sure and deadly game shot, only
shook his head, unconvinced.

"But," struck in the young Dutchman who had started the chaff about the
Transvaal tobacco, "it is only English youngsters who have nerves. Boer
youngsters have no nerves."