Elias van Rooyen is chopping wood on the day that a child named Lukas goes missing. Elias works and thinks about how difficult it is to make extra money. He contemplates the difficulties of poaching elephants, which he thinks of as “bigfeet.” A woman named Barta approaches as he works and asks why Lukas isn’t with him. Elias thought that he was with someone else. Soon, they and other characters are frantically calling out for Lukas. There is a great deal of talk about a child who went missing into the forest. Some are as tough as they need to be. Others are lost for good, killed by bigfeet or other animals. For six days, the search party grows in numbers, but Lukas cannot be found. At the end of the sixth day, the constable says that they must all accept that the child has died. 

In this brief chapter, a child named Benjamin reflects on his status in his family, and in his house. He compares himself to a lamb whose mother does not want it and will not feed it, requiring the lamb’s owners to feed it by hand. There are other children in the house, Dawid, Tollie, Kittie, and Emmie, and he says they are all treated well.