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UMSLOPOGAAS VENTURES OUT TO WIN THE AXE.
Now many moons had gone by since Umslopogaas became a king of the wolves, and he was a man full grown, a man fierce and tall and keen; a slayer of men, fleet of foot and of valour unequalled, seeing by night as well as by day.

But he was not yet named the Slaughterer, and not yet did he hold that iron chieftainess, the axe Groan-Maker.

Still, the desire to win the axe was foremost in his mind, for no woman had entered there, who when she enters drives out all other desire--ay, my father, even that of good weapons.

At times, indeed, Umslopogaas would lurk in the reeds by the river looking at the kraal of Jikiza the Unconquered, and would watch the gates of his kraal, and once as he lurked he saw a man great, broad and hairy, who bore upon his shoulder a shining axe, hafted with the horn of a rhinoceros.