Between Boer and Briton or, Two boys' adventures in South Africa

Front matter

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S~^o

EDWARD STRATEMEYER'S BOOKS

Preface

“Between Boer and Briton” relates, primarily, the adventures of two boys, one an American and the other English, before and during the first eight months of the war between Great Britain and the two South African Republics.

In the tale are followed out the movements of both sides in and around Ladysmith, at Kimberley, in the vicinity of Maf eking, and during the victorious march of Lord Roberts on Pretoria, with side pictures of General Cronje’s plucky stand at Paardeberg Drift, and General Joubert’s fierce repulses of the repeated advances of General Buller.

But the tale is not all of war, nor was it meant to be, and in it I have tried to give my young readers a true picture of life, as it is to-day, on the ostrich and cattle farms and at the immense mines at Johannesberg. The Boer has been pictured as he is, with all his goodness and all his failings, and it is my hope that the picture of the South African Englishman is equally true to life.

IT

PREFACE

In the writing of the historical portions of this work, the best military authorities on both sides have been consulted, as well as the reports of some of the American experts who were at the various scenes of battle. It is hoped, therefore, that the story is free from errors of a sufficient magnitude to hurt its general usefulness.

What the outcome will be of this war, which has already cost the Boers nearly all they possess, and which has taxed Great Britain’s resources as they have never been taxed before, is still a question of the future. Should the Boers bow to the inevitable, it is to be hoped that our Anglo-Saxon cousins across the sea will remember that it is the height of chivalry to be generous to a fallen foe, especially when that foe has proved himself so worthy of one’s steel.

EDWARD STRATEMEYER.

Newark, N.J.,

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. The Ranch on the Brazos . . . 1

II. Dutch Hendrik is outwitted ... 10

Chapter I

“Well, that settles it. There is no longer any money in buying and selling cattle on the hoof in this part of the state, and I might rather go out of business on my own account now than be forced out by the Combination later on.”

The speaker was Mr. Martin Nelson, a tall, wellbuilt man of forty-five years of age, with a ruddy face and a closely cropped brown beard. He sat at the little desk in the sitting room of his ranch home, on the north bank of the Brazos River. Before him lay several sheets of paper well filled with figures, which he had been studying with much dissatisfaction.

“Something wrong again, father?” came the question, from a sturdy youth of sixteen, who sat on a bench near the wide open window, reading a late issue of a Galveston newspaper.

“Yes, Dave, something is very much wrong. Here are my balance sheets for the past year’s business. We have run behind something like two thousand dollars, not to mention our loss through that prairie fire in June.”

The youth threw down the newspaper and came over to his father’^ side. “ That’s too bad, — especially after the way we have worked. Why, we bought and sold more cattle than ever this year.”

“ So we did ; but you know how that Darnell Combination cut prices. I had to meet them or go out of business, and here is the result,” and Mr. Nelson heaved a long sigh.

“And what do you think the prospects are for next season ? ” asked Dave, as he began to study the sheets his father shoved toward him.

“ The prospects are worse. The Combination announces another cut of one-quarter cent per pound.”

“ Another cut ! And they are already selling at cost ! ” cried the boy.

“ They are bound to drive me out of the business, Dave, — that is the long and short of it. They drove

Gladby out over in Stonewall County, and Mueller in Saltville, and now they are after me. The Combination’s policy seems to be one of rule or ruin.”

“ It’s a shame, father, a gross shame ! And after you have spent nearly fifteen years in building up the business ! Can’t you fight them in the courts for cutting in on that grazing land contract ? That wasn’t exactly legal.”

“ I might, but it would take more money than I can spare, and the case might drag along for years. The main thing is they can sell their cattle for what they please, and buy for what they please. After they have me out of the way, you can rest assured they will fix prices to suit themselves.”

“ Cannot we get our old customers to stay by us, — I mean by letting them know exactly how matters stand ? ”

Mr. Nelson shook his head. “No, I tried that with Willowell and with Umbler, but both of them said they must look out for their own interests, and buy and sell as cheaply as possible. The whole thing is here in a nutshell: I can’t fight the Combination because it is too powerful for me, and so ” — the cattle dealer’s voice dropped — “I’ve got to give up business.”

Dave Nelson banged his foot savagely against the side of the black walnut desk, thus bestowing a mental kick upon the obnoxious Combination. “ If you give up the business, what will you do, — give up the ranch too ? ”

“ I presume so — for the ranch won’t pay without the cattle. I felt this was coming when first the Combination opened up in this territory, but I did not imagin6 they would press me so fast.”

“ How Hendrik Kneip will chuckle when he hears we have been forced out,” muttered Dave, after an awkward pause. “ He is as much responsible as anybody for the Combination’s coming here — and that, too, after you taught him the business and gave him a position for years at a good salary. If ever a man was ungrateful it is that Dutchman.”

“ Yes, Dutch Henry has been the wolf to bite the hand that fed him,” answered Mr. Nelson, with increased bitterness of tone. “I took him in as a poor emigrant boy and made a man of him, and this is my reward.” The cattle dealer began to walk the uncovered sitting room floor. “But as he has been dishonest with me, so will he be some day with the Combination, and instead of letting him go, as I did, they will probably put him in prison.”

“ If you give up the business and sell the ranch, have you any idea what you will do next?” asked Dave, after another pause, during which Mr. Nelson kicked off his slippers and slipped on his riding boots.

“Not the slightest, Dave. In the past, and especially since your mother’s death, I have given the cattle business my entire attention. It was my dream to make it the largest in this section of the state, and to take you in as an equal partner as soon as you became of age. Now that dream is shattered, and I don’t know what I shall do,” ^id Mr. Nelson bit his lip and turned away to the door to hide his emotion.

“ Don’t you worry about me, father,” came quickly from the son. u I’ll land on my feet right enough. But it’s a shame for a man of your age to be knocked out, as the saying goes. I’d just like to give Dutch Henry a piece of my mind. He deserves it.”

“ Perhaps ; but quarrelling won’t help the situation, Dave. If I give up I shall do so peaceably, and with as little loss as possible,” concluded Mr. Nelson, as he walked through the kitchen of the ranch home to the grassy dooryard beyond. Here a coal-black mare stood tethered beside a chaparral hedge. Freeing the animal, he mounted her, and was soon disappearing in the direction of the cattle ranges up the river.

Left to himself, Dave continued to study the balance sheets for some time, and even put down a few figures of his own. Since the departure of Hendrik Kneip from the place he had been his father’s chief business assistant, both around the ranch and on the ranges. He knew as much about cattle as the average cow puncher, and could ride with any of them. Although but sixteen, he looked older, and his frame and constitution were as hardy as outdoor life could make them. From his sixth to his fourteenth years he had attended school regularly, and had graduated at one of the leading academies of Austin, the state capital. But though he loved to read, and occasionally to study, he had no desire for anything winch smacked of a commercial or professional life. “ I hate anything that boxes a fellow up inside of four walls,” he had said more than once.

Mr. Martin Nelson was one of two brothers. He was of English parentage, his folks having emigrated from Surrey to New Yo k some ten years after their marriage, and when Martin’s brother Ralph was seven years of age. Martin Nelson had been born three years later, so that there was exactly ten years’ difference between the two brothers’ ages.

From New York the Nelsons had gone West to Missouri, and here Martin Nelson had grown up on his parents’ farm, and had married a pretty German-American girl named Mina Orbutt. In the meantime Ralph, of a roving, happy-go-lucky disposition, had gone, first to sea, and then to Cape Town, Africa, where he had settled down and married among some English friends of his parents.

In the same year that Dave was born his two grandparents' on his father’s side died. At this time there was a great boom in Texas land and cattle, and as soon as affairs could be settled up, Mr. Martin Nelson emigrated thither, taking his wife, her aged father, and his little son with him. His money was invested in a tract of several thousand acres and a fine herd of cattle, and the family were .soon on the highroad to prosperity.

Those sunshiny days of his early boyhood were ones whicl Dave was destined never to forget.

He had the whole range of the ranch home, the big barns and cattle sheds, all to himself, and when he was not getting into mischief at one place or another, then he could be found sitting on his grandfather’s knee, learning German in his own childish fashion, or listening with wide-open eyes to wonderful stories of the Fatherland over the ocean. To please his father-in-law, Mr. Nelson also learned something of the German’s tongue, and it became a common thing, at the dinner table and elsewhere, to hear one member of the family speak in English and another answer in German, or vice versa.

Then came a day of gloom, when Mrs. Nelson contracted a high fever, for which the two doctors who were hastily summoned from miles away could do nothing. The beloved wife and mother lingered but three weeks in sickness and then died. She was buried in a pretty little cemetery by the river side, and two years later her aged father was placed . beside her, and Mr. Nelson and Dave were left alone in the world.

The grief of husband and son had been keen, but hard outdoor work had gradually taken away much of the bitterness. Yet every spring the twin graves by the river were fixed up with fresh flowers, and the trailing vines were rearranged with tenderest care. To those whose hearts are big the loved ones gone before are not easily forgotten.

Chapter II

“Massah Dabe! Massah Dabe ! Wot’s de mattah? Yo’ don’t generally go to sleep in de middle ob de day like dis.”

Dave raised bis head slowly from his arms on the desk, where he had had his face hidden for the best part of quarter of an hour. “ I’m not asleep, Guffy; I was thinking, that’s all.”

“Yo’ dun been t’inkin’ mighty sober-like, Massah Dabe,” said the stalwart colored man, who had just come in from one of the outer sheds with a mess of sweet potatoes in a dish-pan. “ I dun hopes wid all my heart dar ain’t nuffin gone wrong.”

“Nothing very unusual, Guffy. I was thinking of how that Combination is pushing father to the wall.”

“ Dat dar Combination ought to be sunk in de middle ob de Gulf ob Mexico ! ” cried the colored cook, wrathfully. “ And it ought to be sunk right on top ob dat dar Dutch Henry, too.”

“ I quite agree with you. But as we can’t sink either the Combination or that ungrateful Dutchman, we must do something else.”

“If yo’ pap war some men, he’d go huntin’ dat Dutchman wid his rifle. De skunk desarbs it.”

“Father doesn’t believe in violence or in lynch law, — and neither do I, for that matter. But it’s a pity he didn’t have Dutch Henry arrested instead of letting him go, when that cattle was missed two years ago. By the way, what of the cattle that wandered down the creek ; did Pepper round them up?”

“No, his horse dun went lame, and he had to let them go.”

“We can’t afford to lose any heads just now. I’ll go after them myself, and at once,” and Dave started for the door.

“Won’t you stay fo’ dinnah? I’ll hab it ready in half an hour.”

“No, I’ll take a cold bite and be off,” responded the boy.

In less than ten minutes he was on his way, astride of a wiry mustang he had nicknamed

Lightning. The animal had been broken by himself, and he felt as safe in the saddle as he would have felt in a parlor chair.

Over the range they flew, past the long chaparral hedge and bit of prairie, down to where the lowdrooping pecan and cottonwood trees lined the high river bank. The day was a perfect one, the sun shining down from a cloudless sky. It had showered less than twenty-four hours before, laying low the dust of the bare spots, and giving a new lustre to all that was green.

The cattle that Dave was after were four goodsized cows which Mr. Nelson had purchased from a poor farmer who had wished very much to sell them. They had not yet been branded with their familiar N and two stars, and the boy knew that if they once got beyond the Nelson range, they might never be recovered.

44 If we’ve got to get out of the business, we might as well get out with as much money as we can,” mused Dave, as he sped along, taking to a trail which led along the river bank, back of the fringe of trees. 44 Even with the price away down those cows are worth fifty or sixty dollars. Oh, dear ! I suppose if father is forced to sell at a sacrifice he won’t realize ten thousand dollars, although the ranch and stock are worth more than double.”

Dave had covered a distance of half a mile when, on reaching a bend where a second trail crossed the first, he heard a well-known whistle, and looking up, saw a neighbor riding toward him, holding up several letters and newspapers.

“Was just over to town and thought I’d bring your mail for you,” said Mr. Crosby, and as he came closer he handed over the packet.

“ Thank you, Mr. Crosby. By the way, did you see anything of four stray cows as you came along?”

“Four stray cows? No, but I saw Dutch Henry driving four cows up to the Forks.”

“ What ! ” cried Dave, excitedly. “ Four short horns, with white patches ? ”

“ Exactly. I kind o’ thought they might be the cows your father bought from old^Ned Buckley.”

“ They must be the same. They got away from Pepper, and now Dutch Henry is trying to drive them over to the Combination’s range.”

“ Ain’t they branded, Dave ? ”

“No, we haven’t had time to do it — we were so busy fixing up the shed that blew down in that wind storm last week. Which way was he bound ? ”

The neighbor pointed out the direction, and without loss of time Dave plunged off once more, urging his mustang along at topmost speed. For the time being the letters and newspapers were forgotten, and he jammed them into his jacket pocket for inspection later on. It was bad enough to have Hendrik Kneip working against them in a business way ; it was still worse to suffer the loss of so many live stock at his hands.

On and on went the youth, around the bend of the river, and then up a small hill, the top of which was fringed with rocks and cacti. Beyond the hill was another valley, and almost in the centre of this he beheld the man he was after, astride of a bronco, and driving the four cows with all the speed the tired creatures could command.

Dutch Henry, as he had been commonly called from childhood, was attending strictly to business, and did not, therefore, discover Dave until the youth was less than a hundred yards behind him. He was a burly fellow, weighing all of two hundred pounds, with a pudgy face, squinting blue eyes and red hair, and a tangled red beard. As Dave came closer he saw that the Dutchman was armed with both a shotgun and a bowie-knife.

“ What business have you to drive off our cows?” demanded Dave, who, unlike his mildertempered father, believed in coming directly to the point upon all occasions.

“Your cows?” said Kneip, slowly, and with a strong Dutch accent. “ Who say dese vos your cows ? ”

“I say so. They are the cows father bought from old Ned Buckley, and you know it.”

“Look here, ton’t you talk mit me like dot,” growled Dutch Henry, as he swung his shotgun around to the front. “ I find dese cows town by der rifer, und I dink da vos our cows.”

“You know better than that, Henry,” replied Dave, undaunted by the handling of the gui*. “You know this stock as well as I do. They haven’t your brand on them.”

“ Veil, da haven’t your prand neider. How you going to brove da vos your cows, hey ? ”

“ I can prove it by Ned Buckley, and by Mr. Crosby, as well as by Pepper and half a dozen others. You just stop driving them right now, or I’ll make it warm for you.”

At these words the Dutchman scowled ominously. He felt that now he had been discovered he was cornered. “ If you vos sure da been your cows you can haf dem,” he muttered. “ Put you needn’t git so mad apout it.”

“ 1 reckon I have a right to get mad, Hendrik Kneip. For over a year you have been doing your best to ruin my father and drive him out of business.”

“ It ain’t so ! ”

“ It is so. The Darnell Combination would never have come into this section if it hadn’t been for you. It was you who went down to Galveston and got Mr. Darnell to come here and look over the ground personally and filled him with stories about the enormous profits my father was making out of his holdings, and so he came here instead of going farther to the southwest. And you did that, too,' after my father had faised you and taught you the business, and paid you all that you were worth to him, and more.”

“Your fader discharged me.”

“ Only after he found that you were dishonest — that you had reported eight cows drowned in the river and then had sold them in secret to some Oklahoma boomers.”

“ Dot ain’t so — dem cows vos drowned,” snapped the burly ranchman.

“ It is so, and father can prove it, now. If you are not careful of your doings here, we’ll lay the whole case before Mr. Darnell, and then I reckon he won’t want you much longer in his service.”

The words were spoken before Dave had calculated their possible effect* Scarcely had he finished when Hendrik Kneip caught his shotgun by the barrel and raised the stock threateningly over the youth’s head.

“ So dot is vot you vill do, hey ? ” he roared. “ I vill show you vot I can do. Dare ! ”

The was swung around, and the end of the stock grazed Dave’s right ear. But now the bronco reared up, nearly unseating the Dutchman. Dave’s mustang closed in, and in a twinkle the youth had jerked the gun from his enemy’s grasp.

“Gif be dot gun pack, Dafe Nelson ! ”

“ I will not — and you had better keep your distance,” returned the youth, as he urged his mustang in the direction the cows had wandered.

“ I can shoot as straight as you can, and perhaps straighter.”

The Dutchman muttered something in his native tongue which was far from complimentary to the boy who had thus outwitted him. “Vos you going to steal mine gun ? ” he asked presently.

“No, I’ll not steal it, but I’ll take it home with me, and you can get it any time you have a mind to call. After this I shall go armed myself, so you had better beware of what you do.”

There was a pause, during which each looked the other squarely in the eyes. The Dutchman was the first to drop his gaze. He grated his snaggy, yellow teeth.

“You haf der trop on me, so I will leaf you,” he snarled. “ Put I ain’t tone mit you yet, remember dot. I vill get more as square some tay ! ” And shaking his fist at Dave, he wheeled around his bronco and galloped away, the crest of the next hill soon hiding him from view.

Chapter III A Letter From The Transvaal

Left to himself, Dave slung the newly acquired shotgun over his shoulder and proceeded without loss of time to round up the four cows and start them on the back trail for the corral. • “ They shan’t get away again, at least not until they are well branded,” he muttered to himself. He kept a sharp lookout for a possible reappearance of Hendrik Kneip, but that unworthy individual did not show himself.

As he neared home the youth brought forth the letters and newspapers Mr. Crosby had given him. The papers were such as they were in the habit of getting regularly. The letters were three in number, two for his father, evidently business communications, and one for Dave himself. The latter bore a curious foreign stamp, and was post-marked Pretoria, Cape Town, New York, and Seymour, the latter being the county seat and nearest post-office.

“ Hullo, what can this be ? ” he mused. “ Can it be a letter from Uncle Ralph? It certainly looks like it. And yet it’s queer he should write to me instead of to father.”

Dave was as curious as most boys, but his father had drilled him in to follow the maxim of “ business first and pleasure afterward,” and so, before opening the letter, he saw to it that the cattle were properly corralled and that Lightning received the meal that was coming to him.

“ Why, Dabe, whar you dun git dat shotgun ? ” came from the negro cook, as soon as the youth neared the ranch kitchen.

“I took it away from Dutch Henry,” was the quiet reply, but there was a twinkle in Dave's eye as he spoke.

“Tuk it away from dat man ! Wot yo’ mean, chile ? Did yo’ hab a fight ? ”

“ It was hardly a fight, Guffy. He started to hit me with the stock and I pulled the gun away from him.”

“ Good f o’ yo’ ! An’ den — ? ”

“Then I told him to keep his distance, — and he did.”

“ Good ! good ! ” The big negro slapped his thigh with his broad palm. “By golly, but I

A LETTER FROM THE TRANSVAAL would hab like to see yo’ do it ! Tell me all about it, won’t yo’ ? ”

Dave’s story was a short one. “ And now, lias father returned ? ” he said, after he had finished.

“No, sah, — an’ I don’t expect him till sundown.”

“ Then I’ll take dinner alone. The ride has made me tremendously hungry, in spite of the bite I took before I left,” said the boy, and he was soon seated at the long dining room table, where, during busy times, ten to twelve ranchmen and cow punchers were wont to congregate. The table was covered with nothing more elaborate than white oilcloth, but this Guffy prided himself upon keeping as clean as the finest of linen. Of china there was very little, the crockeryware being of the substantial kind meant for rough usage.

While the negro cook was bringing in the midday meal of beef stew, boiled sweet potatoes, custard pie, and coffee, Dave tore open the letter addressed to himself. As was natural he turned first to the signature, to make sure that it was from his Uncle Ralph. He 1 was very much surprised to read instead, “ From your Cousin, Will Nelson.”

“ Cousin Will ! ” he murmured. “ Why, I had almost forgotten that Uncle Ralph had a son. And

yet, come to think of it, he must be just about my age, for father said he and I were born in the same year. It’s a wonder he never wrote to me before ; but perhaps he’s as poor a hand at writing letters as I am.”

“ Bettah eat yo’ dinner, Dabe, befo’ it gits cold,” remonstrated the colored cook ; but the youth hardly heard him, so interested was he in the communication, which ran as follows : —

“Pretoria, South African Republic, “ August 15, 1897.

“ Dear Cousin David : I rather imagine you will be surprised to receive this from me, as neither of us has ever written to the other. But I think it is a beastly shame that two cousins can’t keep up a correspondence, even if, as in our case, one is an American and the other a son of old England. So I am going to pen you a long letter, and I want to tell you right now that I shall expect just as long a letter in return.

“ I think father wrote to your father that we had left Cape Town and gone up to Johannesburg. There was a great rush up into the Trans-

A LETTER FROM THE TRANSVAAL vaal, as most folks call this republic, on account of the opening of some new gold mines just outside of Johannesburg. Our whole family went with the crowd, taking the railway as far as it ran at that time, which was Kroonstad, in the Orange Free State, and finishing the journey by trekking, as we call it (which simply means pulling, in Dutch), to Johannesburg in a big wagon drawn by ten pairs of oxen. We took some furniture and all of our clothing, and the party consisted of father and mother, myself and little sister Alice, who is six years younger than I. A Boer driver managed the turnout, assisted by two of the laziest Hottentots you can possibly imagine.

“When we arrived father found the new mines even better than had been anticipated, and he has now a responsible position with one company and owns a small share in another company just starting. At first we settled down in Johannesburg, but the town is far from being either clean or healthy (the Boer government will pay for no improvements), so that on account of mother’s delicate health, we had to take a place outside. There was a Dutchman who wished to sell out his ostrich farm, located near Pretoria, and as the price was right, father bought it up ; and here we are and likely to stay for a long time to come.

“Pretoria, which is the capital of the Transvaal, as no doubt you already know by studying your geography (of course you have geography lessons even in far-away Texas), is about thirty-four miles from Johannesburg, but our farm is less than eighteen miles away from the new mines, so that father rides the distance over the veldt on horseback night and morning. The veldt is a good bit like what I imagine your western prairies to be, only it is broken up by what we call kopjes, little stony hills that stick up like whitecaps on a stormy sea.

“ Our farm is not a large one for this country, as it contains less than a thousand morgen, — a morgen being two acres, — but it is very prettily situated, and has running water, — something you do not readily find in some parts out here. Big and little, we have one hundred and sixty ostriches, and as the price of feathers is going up we hope to do very well during the coming season. We also keep some cattle and a small flock of sheep. I do the overseeing and have a Hottentot man and two Kafir boys to help me. The Hottentot is