ded, and the next
proceeding was to obtain half a dozen more bullocks for draught
purposes, and two or three more horses.

These were found at last by means of the young doctor, who seemed ready
to be very civil and attentive, but met with little encouragement.
After the landlord had declared that neither horse nor ox could be
obtained there, the doctor took Captain Bedford about a couple of miles
up the river, and introduced him to the young sugar-planter, who eagerly
supplied what was required, not for the sake of profit, but, as he said,
to do a stranger a kindly turn.

"Going up the country, then, are you?" he said. "Hadn't you better take
up land where you can get help if you want it?"

"No," said the captain, shortly. "I have made my plans."

"Well, perhaps you are right, sir," said the sugar-planter, who was, in
spite of his rough colonial aspect and his wild-looking home, thoroughly
gentlemanly. "You will have the pick of the land, and can select as
good a piece as you like. I shall look you up some day."

"Thank you," said the captain, coldly; "but I daresay I shall be many
miles up the river."

"Oh, we think nothing of fifty or a hundred miles out here, sir," said
the young squatter, merrily. "Your boys will not either, when you've
been up yonder a month. Come and see me, lads, when you like. One's
glad of a bit of company sometimes."

They parted and walked back, driving their new acquisitions, and were
getting on very badly, from the disposition on the part of the bullocks
to return to their old home, when the black already described suddenly
made his appearance from where he had been squatting amongst some
low-growing bushes; and as soon as he stepped out into the track with
his long stick, which was supposed to be a spear, bullocks and horses
moved on at once in the right direction, and perhaps a little too fast.

"The cattle don't like the blacks as a rule. They are afraid of the
spears," said the doctor.

"Why?" asked Norman.

"The blacks spear them--hurl spears at the poor brutes."

"Black fellow," said the shiny, unclothed native sharply, "spear um
bullockum."

"Why, he can speak English," said Rifle, sharply.

"Oh yes, he has hung about here for a long time now, and picked it up
wonderfully.--You can talk English, can't you, Ashantee?"

The black showed his teeth to the gums.

"What's his name?" asked Artemus, otherwise Tim.

"Oh, that's only the name I gave him, because he