“A bad workman finds fault with his tools,” said Greenoak, musingly, as he eyed the weapon, and balanced it critically. “Well, I may be a bad workman, but this is a tool I’m not used to. Wait a second while I get my .500 Express.”
He went into his tent. Several empty sardine tins were lying about.
“Now then, Mainwaring,” he said as he reappeared, “chuck up one of those, as high and as far as you can.”
The other did so; Greenoak’s rifle spoke. The tin went whizzing further into the air. Before it came to the ground another bullet struck it, and sent it skimming along some twenty yards further. A shout of applause went up from the onlookers.
“There you are,” said Greenoak, tranquilly. “It resolves itself into a matter of what you’re accustomed to. Now, I dare say a lot of practice with that new gas-pipe of yours, Mainwaring, might get one into the way of it. Still, I don’t know—” taking the weapon from him and balancing it again. “I don’t like the hang of it. The hang seems to leave a lot to be desired.”
Then its owner tried some more shots, with fair success, and then Dick Selmes tried some, but indifferently. The while Harley Greenoak watched the performance narrowly and critically; hardly foreseeing that this repeating rifle was destined to play some important part in the doings of not very far hence.
There were times when Dick Selmes would get low-spirited. There was not much doing just then, as we have said, and at such times his thoughts went back to Haakdoornfontein and its grim but kindly old owner, and more especially, of course, to Hazel Brandon. He had written to her since he left, but to his disappointment had received no reply. Harley Greenoak, who was the recipient of his confidences, as they lay in their hut at night smoking their turning-in pipe, would listen with exemplary patience, and with much kindly tact strive to comfort him; for he had given up urging any objection Sir Anson might entertain on the subject. That must take its chance, he decided. There was nothing to be downhearted about, he declared. The girl wasn’t born who would not think the better of him for having borne a man’s share in active events, and so he would find when he met her again, and more to the same effect. All of which was vastly comforting to Dick, who would turn in with the last impression that if any fellow were found bold enough to tell him that this world could contain a better chap than Harley Greenoak, why, he would take infinite pleasure in calling that man a liar.
A day or two later two express-riders, dusty and fagged with hard riding, arrived in camp with despatches. The burden of these set forth with unmistakable plainness that the recent apparent quietude was but the calm before the storm. The plotting and disaffection was all below the surface now, but it was there, and all the more dangerous for that. The Commandant, with two troops of Police and one seven-pounder gun, were marching to the Kangala, a deserted trading store, occupying a useful central position, there to go into permanent camp, and Inspector Chambers was instructed to join him there, with A. Troop, immediately on receipt of the said despatches.
“I say, but this express-riding must be a devilish exciting sort of joke,” said Dick Selmes, as he looked at the tired and travel-worn men, who stood there waiting, while their officers, having disappeared within the hut, were examining the despatches.
“Don’t know about the joke part of it, mister,” answered one of them, “but it was exciting enough this morning early. Why, we narrowly missed tumbling into a gang of hundreds of ’em, all bristling with assegais and things. And we shouldn’t have missed that if there hadn’t been the devil of a fog on at the time. We saw them, but just managed to slip away before they twigged us.”