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ff across the main road running north, and then on over the rolling veldt, which was just beginning to send forth a few blades of fresh green grass. Alternately cantering and walking, and changing from one pony to the other, he kept steadily on, the unshod hoofs of his animals making no sound, so that Jack had the advantage of being able to hear anyone approaching. Five hours later he stumbled upon the road from Kimberley to Hoopstad, and at once off-saddled to rest himself and his ponies for an hour. During that time no one passed, and having eaten a good meal of biscuit and hard-boiled eggs, he started again, riding along just by the side of the road, and turning on to it now and again, when the veldt was so strewn with boulders or cut up by nullahs and deep water-courses as to make it difficult for him to pick his way. About half an hour later he heard a low, murmuring sound in the distance, and in a few moments could plainly distinguish galloping hoofs. Instantly he turned on to the veldt, and made for a steep kopje a hundred yards off, amongst the boulders of which he quickly hid both himself and the animals. He was not a moment too soon, for just as he got Vic and Prince prone on the ground, and had seated himself on the quarters of one of them, a couple of horsemen came spurring up alongside the road, while three more at that moment galloped round from the farther side of the kopje on which he was hiding, looking ghostly and white in the faint rays of the moon. They all pulled up within a few yards of Jack, and one of them, whom he recognised at once as Hans Schloss, the fat and vindictive little German, turning in his saddle pointed to the top of the hill, and cried out: "Ha, my friends, there is the flag, and here we shall all gather before riding on to kill those pigs of Englishmen in Kimberley!" "That's so," another voice broke in. "That's the flag kopje, and your friends the Transvaal burghers will be joining us at midnight. They are coming through from Bloemhof, and should be here in good time. Then, Hans, my boy, we shall ride for Kimberley, but as for killing the Rooineks, that is another matter. We shall not catch them napping. They are ready, but if the good Lord will give us strength we shall drive them out. Then, Hans, you shall kill them, and they shall be filled with fear at the sight of you. Ha, ha! you will frighten them out of their lives, my brave comrade!" The Boer chuckl
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