"I enlist as Harry Blunt. I may say, sir, that I should feel very greatly obliged if, as I know my duty, you would post me to a troop already up the country instead of to one of those you are raising, and who will have to learn their drill and how to sit a horse before they can be sent up on active duty."
"I can do that," the officer said; "it is only yesterday that we called for recruits, and we have only had two or three applications at present; there is a draft going on to Port Elizabeth next week, and if I find that you are, as you say, up in your drill, I will send you up with them."
"Thank you, sir, I am very much obliged to you."
"The major will be here at four o'clock," the adjutant said; "come in at that time, and you can be attested and sworn in."
"After all," Ronald Mervyn said to himself, as he strode away, "there's nothing like soldiering. I know I should have fretted for the old work if I had settled down on a farm, or even if I had gone in, as I half thought of doing, for shooting for a year or so before settling down. If these natives really mean to make trouble, we shall have an exciting time of it, for the men I have talked with who fought in the last war here say that they have any amount of pluck, and are enemies not to be despised. Now I will be off and look for a horse. I'd better not order my uniform until I am sworn in; the major may, perhaps, refuse me on the ground of want of character." He went up to two or three young farmers who were standing talking in the street.
"I am a stranger, gentlemen, and have just landed. I want to buy a good horse; can you tell me what is the best way to set about it?"
"You will have no difficulty about that," one of them replied, "for there's been a notice up that Government wants to buy horses, and at two o'clock this afternoon, those who have animals to dispose of fit for cavalry service are to bring them into the parade ground in front of the infantry barracks. Government has only asked for fifty horses, and there will probably be two or three times that number brought in. We have each brought in a horse or two, but they are rather expensive animals. I believe the horses are intended for mounts for staff-officers. They want more bone and strength than is general in the horses here."
"I don't much mind what I pay," Ronald said, carelessly. "However, gentlemen, I may see you down there, and if Government does not take your horses, perhaps I may make a deal with one of you."
At the appointed hour Ronald strolled down to the parade. There were a good many officers assembled there, and a large number of young Boer farmers, each with one or more horses, led by natives. The major and adjutant of the Cape Mounted Rifles were examining the horses, which were ridden up and down before them by their owners, the adjutant himself sometimes mounting and taking them a turn. Presently his eyes fell upon Ronald, who was closely scrutinising the horses.
"That is the young fellow I was speaking to you about, major, the man in the tweed suit examining that horse's mouth."