nt for
himself. Anyway, he did not choose to part with him to please anybody.

"Did you hear what I said, Gert?"

"_Ja_, sir."

"Then why the devil don't you answer, and go and do what I tell you,
instead of standing there shaking your silly head as if a bee had stung
you in the ear?"

"Krantz Kop is up at the far end of the _berg_, sir. Boer _menschen_ up
there very _kwaai_."

"Well? What's that to you? I didn't say I wanted an after-rider."

"Gideon Roux very _schelm_ Boer, sir. Strange things happen at Krantz
Kop."

"Oh, go away, Gert. Get in Aasvogel from the camp--no, he's still in
the stable. Well, give him another bundle, so long."

"What am I to ride, sir?"

"You to ride? Confound you, I said I didn't want an after-rider."

"I would like to go with Baas."

Something about the persistency of the man struck Colvin. This
yellow-skinned henchman of his was a wonderful fellow, and there was
precious little he didn't know. Well, he would take him.

"You can go then, Gert. You'll have to ride Pansy, and she's in a camp
full of _kwaai_ birds. Cobus and the others can help get her out--but
hurry up, for I don't want to be kept waiting."

Colvin turned into his house and sat down to his solitary breakfast,
waited upon by Gert's wife, a middle-aged well-looking woman, as neat in
her attire and person as the table arrangements were scrupulously clean
and well served; a very jewel of a housekeeper, he was wont to declare,
for a miserable bachelor establishment in the Karroo. The house itself
was of no great pretensions--being merely a type of a not very
well-to-do farmer's residence--it having just passed out of the
possession of that class of Boer. But there was plenty of room in it,
and it could easily be improved, if its present owner made up his mind
to remain on in it. And, indeed, it was a matter not very far from
foreign to the question of improving and remaining on in it that was
occupying the said owner's mind as he sat alone at breakfast that
morning.

How would May Wenlock look in her bright, sweet freshness, making a
second at that solitary table? Her personality seemed to be creeping
more and more into his life. Why did he not ask her to share it, the
more so that he had no doubt as to what the answer would be? He was not
a conceited man, but he was a fairly experienced and clear-sighted one,
and would have been a born fool had he failed to perceive that the girl
was more tha