"It has to be brushed. It was nearly all cut off, when we were in Cape Coast, and one doesn't want to go out looking like a fretful porcupine."
So, laughing and joking, they started the next morning. There was, as the colonel had predicted, a large meet. Many ladies came on horseback, and others in carriages. The two young officers were soon engaged, chatting and laughing, with the latter.
"Do you mean to say that you are not going to ride, Captain Bullen?" one of the ladies on horseback said.
"In the first place, Miss Merton, I am an infantry officer and, except for a few weeks when I was on the staff of Colonel Lockhart, I have never done any riding. In the second place, I am forbidden to take horse exercise, at present. Moreover, although no doubt you will despise me for the confession, I dislike altogether the idea of a hundred men on horseback, and forty or fifty dogs, all chasing one unfortunate animal."
"But the unfortunate animal is a poacher of the worst kind."
"Very well, then, I should shoot him, as a poacher. Why should a hundred horsemen engage in hunting the poor brute down? Bad horseman as I am, I should not mind taking part in a cavalry charge; but hunting is not at all to my taste."
"You like shooting, Captain Bullen?"
"I like shooting, when there is something to be shot; in the first place, a dangerous animal, and in the second, an animal that is able to show fight. I have several times taken part in tiger hunts, and felt myself justified in doing so, because the animals had made themselves a scourge to unarmed villagers."
"I am afraid that you are a sort of Don Quixote," the girl laughed.
"Not quite that, Miss Merton; though I own I admire the good knight, greatly. We are going to move off, now, to the covert that has to be drawn; and I know I shall shock you, when I say that I sincerely hope that nothing will be found there."