much trouble," she said
appealingly to Saltire. "He wants to go to East London to see his old
specialist, but I don't believe in that man. I think rest in bed is
the cure for all ills. Don't you agree with me, Mr. Saltire?"

"Bed has its uses no doubt," laughed Saltire, with the cheerful
carelessness of the thoroughly healthy man, "but a change of scene is
better sometimes, for some people."

Van Cannan, his shoulder and left eye twitching perpetually, turned a
searching gaze upon the deeply tanned face of the forestry expert, as
though suspecting some double meaning in the words. Saltire bore the
scrutiny undisturbed. Immaculate in white linens, his handsome fairish
head wearing a perpetually well-groomed look, perhaps by reason of a
bullet which, during the Boer War, had skimmed straight through his
hair, leaving a perfect parting in the centre, he was a striking
contrast to the haggard master of the house, who muttered morosely:

"There is some Latin saying--isn't there?--about people 'changing their
skies but not their dispositions.'"

"_In_disposition is a different matter," remarked Saxby sagely, "and
with neuritis it is a mistake to let the pain get too near the heart.
I think you ought to see a doctor, Mr. van Cannan, but East London is a
long way off. Why not call in the district man?"

"He would prescribe a bottle of pink water and charge me a couple of
pounds for it. I need better treatment than that. I could not even
ride this morning--had to leave my horse and walk home. The pain was
vile."

Saxby looked at him sympathetically.

"Well, try a couple of weeks' rest in bed, as Mrs. van Cannan suggests.
You know that I can keep things going all right."

"And Mr. Saltire will continue to turn the prickly-pears into ogres and
hags," said his wife, with her childlike smile. "When you get up
again, he will have a whole army of shrivelled monsters ready for you."

It is true that this was Richard Saltire's business on the farm--to rid
the land of that bane and pest of the Karoo, the prickly-pear cactus.
The new governmental experiment was the only one, so far, that had
shown any good results in getting rid of the pest. It consisted in
inoculating each bush with certain poisons, which, when they entered
the sap of the plant, shrivelled and withered it to the core, making
its large, pale, flapping hands drop off as though smitten by leprosy,
and causing the whole bush to assume a staggering, mena