t you to inspan, and take one of the waggons up
to Gueldersdorp, with a letter from me to the Civil Commissioner. I will
tell him how the man is dead, and he will send down a magistrate's clerk
to put a seal on the boxes and cases, and then he will go through the
letters and papers in the pocket-book, and write to the people of the dead
man over in England, supposing he has any, for I have heard him tell my
wife there was not a living soul of his name now, except the child----"

"But what good will all this do you and me, Baas?" asked the Boer
subserviently.

Bough spread his hands and shrugged his shoulders.

"Why, when the magistrates and lawyers have hunted up the man's family,
there will be an order to sell the waggons and oxen and other property to
pay the expenses of his burying, and the child's keep here and passage
from Cape Town, if she is to be sent to England ... and what is left over,
see you, after the law expenses have been paid, will go to the settlement
of our just claims. They will never let honest men suffer for behaving
square, sure no, they'll not do that!"

But though Bough's words were full of faith in the fair dealing of the
lawyers and magistrates, his tone implied doubt.

"Boer lawyers are slim rogues at best, and Engelsch lawyers are duyvels as
well as rogues," said Smoots Beste, with a dull flash of originality.

Bough nodded, and pushed another glass of liquor across the bar.

"And that's true enough. I've a score to settle with one or two of 'em. By
gum! I call myself lucky to be in this with a square man like you. There's
the waggon, brand-new--you know what it cost at Cape Town--and the team, I
trust you to take up to Gueldersdorp, and who's to hinder a man who hasn't
the fear of the Lord in him from heading north-east instead of north-west,
selling the waggon and the beasts at Kreilstad or Schoenbroon, and living
on a snug farm of your own for the rest of your life under another man's
name, where the English magistrates and the police will never find you,
though their noses were keener than the wild dogs?"

"Alamachtig!" gasped Smoots Beste, rendered breathless by the alluring,
tempting prospect. Surely the devil spoke with the voice of the
tavern-keeper Bough, when, in human form, he tempted children of men.
Sweat glistened on Smoots' flabby features, his thick hands trembled, and
his bowels were as water. But his purpose was solidifying in his brain as
he said innocently, looking