“I shouldn’t be surprised. I’ve been in these parts a good many years, and I was up in Matabeleland in ’96, when they started there, as you know. We were in a prospecting camp just like this, and I shan’t forget the nine days three of us had dodging the rebels. Others weren’t so lucky. Well, it’d be pretty much the same here, only we couldn’t dodge these because there’s no cover. It’d simply mean mincemeat.”
“Gaudy look out. In truth, Robson, a prospector’s life is not a happy one.”
“No fear, it isn’t. Here I’ve been at it on and off over sixteen years in all parts of this country pretty well. I struck something once, but it petered out, and still I’ve kept on. Once a prospector, always a prospector. Learn from me, Harry Stride, and chuck it. You’re not too old now, but you soon will be.”
“Oh, I don’t know. There’s a sort of glorious uncertainty about it—never knowing what may turn up.”
“Except when there’s the glorious certainty of knowing that nothing is going to turn up, as in the present case. Yet, I own, there’s something about it that gets into the blood, and stays there.”
“Well, what d’you think, Robson? We don’t seem to be doing much good here. How would it be to change quarters?”
“If there’s any stuff in the country at all it’s here. I’ve located it pretty accurately. The stuff is here, there’s no doubt about that, but—is there enough of it? We’ll try a little longer.”
“All right, old chap. I’m on. I say, I’ll tell you a rum find I made on the way up yesterday afternoon. I’d just got through the Bobi drift—beastly place, you know—swarming with crocs. I lashed a couple of shots into the river to scare any that might be about. Well, on this side, just above water level, and stuck in the brushwood, I found—what d’you think?”
“Haven’t an idea. A dead nigger, maybe.”
“No fear. It was a saddle. What d’you think of that?”