Of course this is only what I surmised; but it satisfied me at the time, and I could not help laughing at the waste of powder and lead occasioned by the harmless incident of a spark being struck from a stone by a horse's foot.
We were soon, however, satisfied about one thing: that we were not being pursued; for there was no more firing, and the voices soon died out as we went steadily on along a rough winding track pretty free from stones.
We must have been carefully making our way onward for about an hour, when suddenly we walked right into a mist, which made our progress more difficult, for the great blocks of stone seemed to loom up suddenly right in our way; and in avoiding these we somehow missed the track, good proof of which was given me by Joeboy's action; for he suddenly checked the horse, stooped down, felt about, and ended by lifting a stone as big as my head and casting it from him.
"Why did you do that, Joeboy ?" I said.
"Boss wait," was the answer, and I waited, to hear the stone strike directly after, and then keep on striking, as it went on by leaps and bounds, making me shudder slightly as I grasped the fact that Joeboy had checked the horse suddenly just on the brink of some precipice, down which the stone went rolling and plunging till the sounds of its blows died away along with the echoes it raised..