"Admirably. I went straight into the middle of a commando at Fauresmith, and learnt all that there was to learn without exciting the slightest suspicion. I hope you are doing well with your cattle."
"Excellently. I am getting a much better price for them than I could have obtained a month ago—more, indeed, than at the best of times; and I am told that all my heavy horses will be bought on good terms as remounts, but that the smaller ones are too light for this sort of work. I shall try and sell them to one of the Dutch farmers, but I can't expect to get much from them; in fact, I expect I shall almost have to give them away."
"Colonel Pinkerton has just made an arrangement by which you will get a fair price for twenty of them, if you have as many, for use by a score of Kaffirs who are at work under me as scouts. I don't suppose he will give you a high price for them; but at any rate he will pay you more than you would get from the Boers, who would know that you must take anything that they chose to offer."
"That is good news indeed. I am sure that I should not have got more than a pound a head for them, and they are worth from seven to ten pounds. If they will give me seven apiece all round I shall be delighted."
This was, indeed, the price that Yorke heard later in the day was paid for them.
On leaving Mr. Grimstone, Yorke went among the Kaffirs and picked out twenty active men, all of whom spoke Dutch. They had all been clothed in blue frocks and trousers, and when they had been handed over to him he was well pleased with their serviceable appearance; in the afternoon he obtained the ponies from the remount department. The Kaffirs were in the highest glee at exchanging hard labour for work of a kind most congenial to them. Saddles were not necessary, nor were there any to spare, but Yorke obtained a couple of hides from the commissariat and the natives cut them into strips, folded up their blankets and placed them on the ponies' backs, using bands of raw hide as saddle-girths. With other strips they manufactured loops to act as stirrups, rough bridles, and reins.
"Now, Hans, I shall promote you to the position of sergeant," Yorke said that evening. "Your only duty will be to look after the fellows generally, to bargain with the farmers for food, and to see that the blacks obey orders when we are camping."
"Very well, Master Yorke, I will do my best. I shall be glad to be right away from this camp; the dust here is awful. And, having nothing to do while everyone else is at work, I quite long to be a Kaffir and do something."
"I did not know you were so fond of work, Hans."
"I didn't know that I was either," Hans said with a grin.