u are, boy. Just as if any one could be low-spirited when he is
young and strong, out in this wide free place on such a lovely morning."

"It's all right enough now," replied Dyke, "because it's early and cool;
but it is so horribly lonely."

"Lonely! Why, I'm always with you," cried Emson--"the best of company.
Then you've Jack and Tanta Sal, and Duke, and Breezy, and all the
ostriches for pets, and the oxen; while, if you want more company,
there's old Oom Schlagen out one way, and old Morgenstern out the
other."

"Ugh! Stupid old Boers!" cried Dyke.

"Well, they're civil to you, and that's more than Oom Schlagen is to me.
It's because you have got that Dutch name. I say, father meant you to
be a painter, I'll be bound, and here you are, an ostrich-farmer."

"Oh yes, and we're going to be very rich when the birds are all dead."

"And they seem as if they meant to die, all of them," said Emson sadly,
as he rode along by his brother, each with his rifle across his
saddle-bow. "I don't seem to have got hold of the right way of managing
them, Dyke: we must follow nature more by watching the habits of the
wild ones. I have tried so hard, too."

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Dyke merrily. "Who's grumbling now!"

"That's better, and more like yourself, old fellow," said Emson, smiling
down pleasantly. "That's more like the light-hearted chap who promised
to stick to and help me like a brother should. You hurt me, Dyke, when
you turn so low-spirited and sulky. I've plenty of troubles, though I
say little, over my venture here; and when I see you so down, it worries
me more than I can say."

They rode on over the open veldt that glorious morning in silence for
some minutes, and Dyke looked down at his horse's mane.

"It makes me feel that I have done wrong in bringing a bright, happy lad
away from home and his studies to this wild solitary place. I ought to
have known better, and that it was not natural for a boy like you to
feel the hard stern determination to get on that I, ten years older,
possessed. I ought to have known that, as soon as the novelty had
passed away, you would begin to long for change. Father did warn me,
but I said to him: `I'm a man, and he's only a boy; but we've been
together so much, and always been companions, Dyke and I can't help
getting on together.'"

"And we can't," cried the boy in a husky voice. "Don't, please don't,
Joe, old chap; I can't bear it. I've been a beast."

"Oh,