Then the limp wife and the children came forward, and were duly made acquainted with Denham, who won golden opinions from the minor parent of the latter on the spots by stroking their sticky little paws within his, and insisting upon making them stickier still with the contents of certain glass bottles of bull’s-eyes which stood upon one of the shelves within the store.
“What’s yours, Mr Denham?” said Minton, going, in business-like fashion, behind the bar end of the store counter. “Ben’s form of poison never varies. It’s square face in this country, and ‘dop’ down in Natal—when he can get it. Cheer, oh!”
Now the prospectors dropped in. All knew Ben Halse; then they were introduced to Denham, and of course another round was set up.
“Hello, Robson,” sung out Minton, when this was accomplished. “Where’s your pal?”
“Don’t know. He says it’s too hot.”
“Too hot?” rejoined Minton derisively. “I like that. He’s hot stuff himself. Bring him in. It’s my round.”
Thus Harry Stride and Denham met again. The latter showed no trace of resentment with regard to their last meeting. He greeted Stride with an open, pleasant cordiality that rather astonished that youth. But Stride was not responsive. He avoided showing his antipathy, and was conscious of feeling galled that his partner, Robson, was behind the secret of it. Yet he need not have been, for the tactful North-countryman never by word or wink let drop that he possessed the slightest knowledge of the same even to him.
The accommodation was somewhat crowded, of necessity. Verna declined an invitation to use one of the rooms within the house. The perpetual yowling of the Minton nursery, heard through partitions of paper-like thinness, might as well have been in the same room. So she elected to sleep in the spider, on the ground that it was cooler. The men sat smoking in a group, with an occasional adjournment to the bar, then turned in anywhere and at any time as they felt sleepy. The horses were all brought within the enclosure and securely made fast.
“What have you been doing about sentry-go, Minton, up till now?” said Ben Halse, after every one was pretty well asleep.
“Oh, I don’t know we’ve thought much about it,” was the devil-may-care answer. “I’ve got a couple of pups here—them rough-haired curs you see yonder at the back. They’ll raise Cain enough before any one’s within two miles of us, you bet. Come and have a last nightcap—what d’you say, Mr Denham?”