Shomolekae also had to be so bold and daring that, if lions came to eat the oxen at night, he could go with the gun and either frighten them away or actually shoot them.

So you see Shomolekae was very clever, and was full of good courage.

While he was living at Kuruman a man came to him one day and said: 

“John Mackenzie is alone at Shoshong, and there is no one who can drive his wagon well for him.”

The man who told him this was, as it happened, going by wagon to Shoshong, where John Mackenzie lived.

“Let me go with you,” said Shomolekae.

So he got up into the wagon, and away they went day after day northward on the same journey that Shomolekae had taken when he was a boy.

So Shomolekae served Mackenzie for years as wagon driver at Shoshong.

At last the time came when Mackenzie himself left the tribe at Shoshong—­left Khama and all his people—­and travelled southward to build at Kuruman a kind of small school where he could train young black men to be missionaries to their own people.  And Shomolekae himself went to Kuruman with Mackenzie.  He set to work with his own hands, and he helped to make and lay bricks, to put in the doors and windows, and to place the roof on the walls, until at last the little school was built.

And when it was actually built Shomolekae himself went to be a student there, and Mackenzie began to train him to be a preacher and a teacher to his own people.

For three years Shomolekae worked hard in the college, learning more and more about Jesus Christ, preparing himself to go among his own people to tell them about Him.

At last the time came when he was ready to go; and he started out, and travelled long, long miles through sandy places, and then by a river, until at last he reached a town of little thatched huts called Pitsani, which means “The Town of the Little Hyena.”

In that town he gathered the men and women and the boys and girls together and taught them the things that he knew.

While Shomolekae was at Pitsani there came into that part of Africa a new missionary, whose name was Mr. Wookey.

It was decided that Mr. Wookey should go a long, long journey and settle down by the shores of Lake Ngami, which, you remember, David Livingstone had discovered long years before.

Shomolekae wished to go out with Mr. Wookey into this country and to help.  So he took the wagon and yoked the oxen to it, loaded it up with food and all the things needed for cooking as they travelled along, and drove the oxen dragging the wagon over many hundreds of miles of country in which leopards barked and lions roared, until at last they came to the land near Lake Ngami.

When they came into this land, and found a place in which to settle down, clever Shomolekae mixed earth into mud just as boys and girls do in order to make mud-pies, but he made the mud into the shape of bricks, and then placed the bricks of mud out into the sun to dry.