horses."

"You may believe it, then," said his father. "And now get them to the
stable."

"Oh, I say, Dick, what beauties!" cried Jack. "What shall you call
yours?"

"I don't know yet," replied his brother. "He's very fast. `Swift'
wouldn't be a bad name; and we might call yours `Sure.'"

"Hum! I don't think much of those names. Hold up!" he continued,
examining the hoofs of his brother's nag. "I say, Dick, what fine thick
shoes he has got."

"That's a good suggestion," said Dick, laughing, and looking brighter
than he had seemed for weeks. "Let's call him `Shoes,' and his brother
with the white legs `Stockings.'"

"Shoes and Stockings!" cried Jack; "but those are such stupid names. I
don't know though but what they'll do."

The question was not discussed, for the lads busied themselves in
bedding down their own horses; and for the rest of that, day the stable
seemed to be the most important part of the house.

CHAPTER THREE.

PREPARATIONS FOR THE JOURNEY.

"What is it ye're doing?" said Dinny, a day or two before that proposed
for the start.

Coffee and Chicory looked up from their task, grinned, and then went on
sharpening the points of a couple of assegais upon a heavy block of
stone, which they had evidently brought from a distance. Their faces
glistened with perspiration; their knees were covered with dust; and
they were in a wonderful state of excitement. Resuming their work on
the instant, they tried to bring the weapons to a keen point.

"Kill lion," said Coffee, laconically; and he worked away as if the lion
were round the corner waiting to be killed.

"Then ye may just as well lave off, ye dirty little naygars; for it's my
belafe that you're not going at all."

Dinny went off into the house leaving the two boys apparently paralysed.
They dropped the assegais, stared at each other, and then lay down and
howled in the misery of their disappointment.

But this did not last many seconds; for Coffee sprang up and kicked
Chicory, who also rose to his feet, and in obedience to a word from his
brother they took their assegais and hid them in a tree which formed
their armoury--for out of its branches Chicory took the two kiris or
clubs; and then the boys ran round to the front, and stood making signs.

The brothers had such a keen love of anything in the way of sport that,
expecting something new, they ran out and willingly followed the two
young blacks out into the grassy plain ab