“Excuse my seeming inhospitality, Ancram,” he said. “I must go and help give an eye to the off-loading, but if you like to go in there you’ll find all the ingredients for a wash-up. We shall have supper directly.”
“Oh, that’s quite all right, old chap,” was the airy reply, “By the way, I’ll come with you.”
Outside, by the light of three or four lanterns, several natives were busily unloading the donkey-carts and transferring their contents to the strongly-built hut which constituted the store-room: bags and boxes, and pockets of sugar, and packages of candles and soap—all sorts of necessaries and a few luxuries.
“Aha!” laughed Peters, shaking one case; “was beginning to think this had been forgotten. What’d become of us then, hey, Ancram?”
“Why, what is it?”
“Scotch. Pother’s Squareface. Well, we’re nearly through now, and I shan’t be sorry to get my champers into a steak of that sable.”
“Well, you won’t be able to,” said Lamont. “There’s none left. But I went down into ‘the poultry yard’ and picked up a few pheasants.”
“We call the river bank our poultry yard, Ancram,” explained Peters, when they were seated at table discussing the products of the same. “When we first came up here, Lamont and I, if we wanted a bird or two we just went to the door and shot it. Now you have to go away from the homestead a bit, but you can always get as many as you want. Are you fond of shooting?”
“Rather. I say, Lamont, d’you remember what jolly shoots we had at Courtland?”
“Are you fond of fighting, Ancram?” said Lamont.