“All the better. What does the said Hesketh consist of?”
“Himself. He’s a primitive old customer, and you’ll have to rough it there. I warn you of that.”
“The shoot good?”
“It just is.”
“Hurrah then!” cried Dick. “I’m on.”
“Well, we’ll go back to the Bay, and pick up a Cape cart—it’ll always sell again when we’ve done with it—and some more ammunition. Another horse, too, won’t hurt. These two we got from Simcox are all right, but you’ve already shown a tendency to ride yours to death. A fellow who’s as keen as you are can’t go on for ever pushing the same horse over all sorts of ground from sunrise to sunset.”
“Good—and good again!” assented Dick.
The farewell he took of his entertainers was a very cordial one. Their hospitality had been as genuine as it was unceremonious. He had shared their life as one of themselves, and if the experience was totally different to any former one, why he had thoroughly enjoyed it, and said so, in no half-hearted way. Further, he had readily promised to repeat it on his way homeward.
“That’s a thoroughly nice young chap,” pronounced Simcox, decisively, as their late guests turned for a final wave of the hand before disappearing from view down the kloof. “Not an atom of ‘side,’ takes us as he finds us, and no nonsense about him. I hope he’ll look in again, on his way back.”
And Simcox’s women-kind quite enthusiastically agreed with Simcox.