carry his spear, evidently as a
great favour and a mark of honour.

"Treats it," said Mark merrily, "as if it were his sceptre."

But there was no suggestion of quarrelling, and the man was seen at his
best and full of smiles when, as the bullocks plodded sluggishly along,
hunting excursions were made off to the right or left of the trail--a
trail which the party formed for themselves, for the old ones soon died
out--the new one being formed as to direction by their guide himself.
He selected the most open country, and pointed out with his spear some
distant object for which Buck Denham was to make, and when it was
reached in the evening it was invariably found to be a spot where there
was a good supply of water and food for the cattle.

So far from there being any quarrelling on the side of Brown--Dunn
Brown, as to their great amusement he told the boys was his full name,
Dunn from his mother, and Brown from his father--the long, thin,
peculiar looking fellow settled down as calmly as if he had been in Sir
James's service half his life.

He was a kind and careful tender of the ponies, and after a few displays
of awkwardness which Buck Denham corrected in the most friendly way, he
was soon quite at home with the bullocks.

"Why, the great lumbering, fat, stupid brutes are beginning quite to
know him, gentlemen, and I should not be at all surprised if one of
these days we find him whistling to them and making them come to him
like the ponies."

As the party journeyed on day after day farther and farther from
civilisation, the expedition was all that could be desired. Game was
plentiful and the two keepers were quite in their element, so that the
larder was well stocked, and they took care that there was plenty of
sport for the two lads whenever the waggons' course was marked down and
the little party, trusting to the drivers to make their way to the given
point, struck off in a different direction so as to make a _detour_ and
meet at their appointed centre before night.

The ponies enabled their riders to get many a shot at the several
varieties of antelope--boks, as they were generally called--while as
game was so abundantly plentiful, the boys were asked by the doctor what
they would seek for that day when they would sometimes decide on
devoting one barrel of their double guns to small shot, the other in
case of danger being loaded with a bullet. Then they would make the
Illaka understand what they required,