had, as we have said, campaigned
together in Rhodesia. On returning to the Colony at the close of the
rebellion he had come to visit his former comrade-in-arms at the
latter's own home, and had spent three months there while looking about
for a place of his own. He had soon found one to his liking, and now
owned a 5,000-morgen farm in the Wildschutsberg range, where report said
he got through more game-shooting than farming. If so, it didn't seem
to matter greatly, for Colvin Kershaw was one of those phenomena
occasionally encountered--an habitually lucky man. What he undertook in
a small and careless way was wont to turn out better results than ten
times the carefully prepared labour and forethought exercised by other
people. Furthermore he was uncommunicative as to his own affairs, and
whatever was known about him among his neighbours amounted to just
nothing at all.

"Come again soon," had been May's parting words, and the blue eyes
uplifted to his during that last handclasp had been wondrously soft and
appealing.

Was it upon this his thoughts were dwelling so intently as he rode along
mile after mile? Perhaps. Yet he had often bidden her farewell before.

CHAPTER THREE.

A BOER FARM.

Ratels Hoek, the farm owned by Stephanus De la Rey, was situated in a
broad, open basin, surrounded by the craggy, cliff-crowned hills of the
Wildschutsberg range.

It was a prosperous-looking place. The homestead was large and roomy,
and not unpicturesque, with its deep verandah shaded by growing
creepers, which, however, at that time of year were destitute of
leafage. A well-kept flower garden, which was a blaze of bright colour
in good seasons, went round two sides of the house, and behind, abundant
stabling and shearing sheds and kraals and dipping tank testified to the
up-to-date ideas and enterprise of its owner. Beyond these again large
patches of cultivated lands, shut in by high quince hedges, sloped down
to the Sneeuw River, which took its rise in the Wildschutsberg, and
which, normally dry or the merest trickle, could roar down in a terrific
torrent at very short notice what time thunderstorms were heavy and
frequent in the mountains beyond. Away over the veldt, which, until
joining the grassy slopes of the surrounding heights, was gently
undulating and fairly covered with mimosa bush, ostriches grazed, or
stalked defiantly up and down the wire fencing which divided one large
"camp" from another.