Tales of South Afric‪a‬

We strolled after breakfast, taking our pipes with us, to the chimney-like cul-de-sac where Tobias Steenkamp's footprints had been last seen, four years before. The place looked more than ever dark, narrow, and forbidding; and as we stood upon the sandy floor of the ravine and gazed upward to the faint patch of sky showing between the cliffs, two hundred feet above, the sharp contrast made it yet more awesome. For half an hour we looked about us, examining carefully every cranny and projection within our vision. Suddenly a boyish expedient of mine flashed into my mind.