Cameron found himself driving back to town by Stevenson's side before he had collected his thoughts—or even had his lemon squash.
Half the way Mortimer rattled on about the day's work in camp, the transports, provisions for the comfort of the horses, the prospect of the contingent's success.
'By the way,' he said all at once, 'I want you to do me a favour. The governor's been too free with his cash for me—not safe to have too much about, you know—tempt some poor devil. D'ye mind taking some of it and looking after it for me—just for a year or two till I get back? Use it, you know; you might use it now instead of drawing any out of your own account, then when I come home you can pay me back. Awfully obliged it you will; had a couple of pounds stolen out of my tent yesterday, and have been going about with fifty pounds on me since. I'll get you to look after thirty of it; the governor's cabled no end of money to a bank in Durban for me, for fear I'll run short.'
Half a dozen crisp notes were thrust into Cameron's hands, and Mortimer, hot and red in the face, was rattling on again about the horse-boxes for the voyage, and how they should have been made this way, and not that way, and about the wisdom of telling the men to bring their own saddles, and about that egregious ass the public, who seemed to think the Bushmen were so thin-skinned that they could not bear a word of command, unless it was put in the form of a polite request.
'Isn't it tommy-rot?' said Mortimer. 'We're not a pack of sensitive girls. We enjoy the discipline, and recognise we have to be licked into some sort of order, unless we want to remain a mob.'
Cameron was very quiet, but he gripped Mortimer's hand on parting, and cleared his throat to try to say something.
But the young volunteer found he must be off in violent haste.
'By George,' he said, 'haven't another minute; promised the colonel I'd go out and kick up a row about the horse-boxes,' and his big loose figure plunged back to the waiting cab. 'You'll come and see me off, all right, so long'; and the cab woke to life and moved smartly off, to lose itself in the stream of vehicles going towards the quay.
Cameron, a lump in his throat, turned towards the General Post Office, to see if there were further news from the little contingent at home. The last letters from Bart had been disquieting; Small, the butcher, it seemed, had transferred the mortgage he held on the selection to old Mr. Stevenson. 'And Daly says,' Bart had written, 'it's about the worst thing that could have happened, Stevenson's so close-handed. Small often used to give you time, but he says Stevenson never will.' A second letter followed. Stevenson had foreclosed, but was willing for a year or two, until a tenant he had in view was ready to occupy, that Cameron should remain on the place. In the meantime, however, he, Stevenson, must be at liberty to make any alteration or improvement he saw fit to the property.
The present letter was excited in tone. 'After all, dad,' the boy wrote, 'I believe it's the best thing that could have happened. The place is looking up no end, there are quite ten men at work on it, so the chances are the mater and Challis won't quite die of the shock of seeing it. And what do you think? You know that calf we gave Hermie two years ago? Well, I never knew there was good blood in it, did you? It's the last thing you'd think to look at it. But that Stevenson knows a thing or two. He comes down here and pokes about pretty often, and he saw it, and what did you think? Offered me ten pounds down for it! I couldn't believe my ears. Don't you remember I tried to sell it when you were ill, and Small offered two for it? But I wasn't going to let on I was so green as not to know it was a good sort, and I said straight that we could not let it go under fifteen. He looked at me in that queer, sharp way of his, and he poked at the calf a bit, and then said, "Say twelve ten." But I'd got my mettle up by that. I knew if a close-handed, hard chap like that offered twelve ten, it must be worth quite twenty-five. I just turned round and went on digging up the potatoes for dinner and said, "Fifteen pounds," for all the world like Small does at the sales. He went round to Dimple and began poking at her again, and examining her like anything, and then he said, "Fourteen pounds, sonny." I'd got enough potatoes out for Miss Browne by then, so I put them in the basket and just said, "Good morning, sir," and pretended to be going.