over Bough's left shoulder at the wooden
partition that divided off the bar from the landlord's dwelling-room:

"Aye, I am no dirty schelm that cannot be trusted. Therefore would it not
be better if I took both teams and waggons, and all the rooinek's goods
with me up to Gueldersdorp, and handed it over to the Engelsch landrost
there?"

The fish was hooked. Bough said, steadily avoiding those twirling eyes:

"A good notion, but the lawyer chaps at Gueldersdorp will want to look at
the Englishman's dead body to be able to satisfy his people that he did
not die of a gunshot, or of a knife-thrust; we must bury him, of course,
but not too deep for them to dig him up again. And they will want to
ferret in all the corners of the room where he died, and make sure that
his bags and boxes have not been tampered with--and then there is the
child. In a way"--he spoke slowly and apologetically--"the kid and the
goods are my security for getting my own back again--if ever I do. So you
will inspan one of the waggons--the best if you like, with a team of six
beasts, and you will trek up to Gueldersdorp--you will travel light enough
with only the grub you will need, and the Cape boys, and you will hand
over the letter to the Resident Magistrate, and bring back the man who
will act as his deputy."

But at this point Smoots Beste set down his splay foot. He would undertake
to deliver the letter, but he objected to the company of the coloured
voor-loopers or the Kaffir driver. He was firm upon that and, finding his
most honeyed persuasions of no avail, Bough said no more. He would pay off
the niggers and dismiss them, or get rid of them without paying; there
were ways and means. He sent up country, and the team came down, six thin,
overworked creatures, with new scars upon their slack and baggy hides, and
hollow flanks, and ribs that showed painfully. Smoots Beste was about to
grumble, but he changed his mind, and took the letter, buttoning it up in
the flapped pocket of his tan-cord jacket, and the long whip cracked like
a revolver as the lash hissed out over the backs of the wincing oxen, and
the white tilt rocked over the veld, heading to the nor'-west.

"When will the Dutchy be back, boss?" asked the woman, with a knowing
look.

Bough played the game up to her. He answered quite seriously: "In three
weeks' time."

Then he strolled out, smoking a cigar, his hat tilted at an angle that
spoke of satisfaction. His walk led him pas