ng
journey so soon, and if he had taken _great_ care of himself during the
same, the effect on her victim was such a reaction from his first
feeling of dismay at her non-appearance that he could have thrown up his
hat and hoorayed aloud. Whereby we fear it is only too obvious that
friend Renshaw was as big a fool as the general run of his fellow-men.

"Well, and what do you think of this country, Mr Sellon?" came the
inevitable query, as they were gathered together after the first fuss
and flurry of greeting.

"I think various things, Mrs Selwood," was the ready reply. "Parts of
it are lovely, and parts of it are grand, and one gets a fine
opportunity of seeing it all during a fortnight's journey behind three
horses. But other parts, on the other hand, and notably the latitudes
inhabited by friend Fanning here, reminded me forcibly of the Yankee's
reply to the same question."

"And what was that?"

"Why, he was travelling in that awful Karroo during a drought, and
somebody asked him what he thought of the country, `What do I think of
your country?' says he. `See here, stranger, if I owned a section of
your country I guess I'd enclose that section well around, and send out
for a paint-pot and paint it green.'"

This tickled Selwood amazingly, and he burst into a roar.

"Well, that wouldn't hold good of our part," he said when he had
recovered.

"Oh no, no," assented the stranger, hurriedly. "Let me clear myself of
that charge of heresy without delay. Words are inadequate to describe
the beauties of the road as soon as we got into these mountains. I'm
serious, mind."

"Well, we must contrive to show you more of them," said his hostess.
"Are you fond of shooting, Mr Sellon?"

"He just is," put in Renshaw. "He kept us in game all along the road,
and in chronic hot water with all the Dutchmen whose places we passed,
by knocking over springboks under their very windows without so much as
a `by your leave.'"

"Well, it's better to be the shooter than the shootee, eh, Fanning? But
that joke'll keep," laughed Sellon, significantly.

"We can show you plenty of fun in that line here," said Christopher.
"The mountains are swarming with rhybok, and there are any amount of
partridges and quail. Plenty of bushbucks, too, in the kloofs, and
guinea-fowl. Hallo, by Jove! it's time to go and count in," he added,
jumping up from his chair.

Then the three men started off to do the regulation evening round of the