frank cordiality.

"I hope you will be able to make some stay with us, Mr Holt," he said.
"You have spent the night here, and, I take it, have seen what we have
to offer you; but such as it is, you are very welcome."

So this was Brian's father! I confess he inspired in me more than a
feeling of cordiality--for it was one of admiration. I knew men pretty
well by that time, and was a bit of a cynic on the subject; but now I
saw before me one whom I read as rather a unique specimen--a man who
would say what he meant, and who would act as his judgment dictated, no
matter what the whole world might think--a man whose word would be as
his bond, even though it were to his own detriment; in short, in this
frontier stock-farmer I saw a man who, no matter where he might be put
down, or under what circumstances, would be a very tower of reliability:
cool, intrepid, sound of judgment, come good, come ill. And in all my
subsequent friendship with Septimus Matterson, I never had cause to
swerve one hair's breadth from my first impression--save in one instance
only.

Now as two Kafirs came up to stand at the horses' heads, somebody else
jumped out of the buggy--a boy to wit, whom Mr Matterson promptly
introduced as his youngest son. He was a boy of about fourteen, a
good-looking boy, but with a roving mischievous look in his face; a boy,
in short, to whom I did not take one bit. Equally readily I could see
that he did not take to me.

"Just out from England, hey?" said this hopeful. "Man, but you'll find
it different here."

Now this was hardly the form of address to be looked for from a
youngster of his tender age to a man very considerably his senior;
moreover, there was something patronising about it which prejudiced me
against the speaker; in fact, I set him down at once as an unlicked cub.
But of course I showed no sign of what I was thinking, and the work
Brian had been superintending being at an end, we all went round to
count the flocks--I don't mean I bore any part in that operation, not
then--and adjourned to the house for breakfast.

CHAPTER NINE.

MAINLY VENATORIAL.

Beryl looked wholly fresh and delightful as she welcomed us, and it was
hard to believe she had been up nearly three hours "seeing to things,"
as Brian put it. There was a good deal of talk, of wholly local
interest, with regard to the expeditions of both father and son, and the
results thereof, but even it was by no means without interes