“I say ugly,” said Mark to his cousin, “but all the same I should like to be inside one when there was a bad hailstorm. My word, what a shindy there would be with the big stones—lumps of ice, I suppose, they would be in a place like this—hammering down upon the zinc roof.”
“The soldiers look cheery enough.”
“And healthy,” said the doctor.
“Thoroughly,” said Sir James. “It is a pity they cannot make arrangements down at the port to give their men a holiday up here.”
They were close up to the captain’s quarters, and he, catching sight of the party, came out hastily to shake hands.
“Well,” he said, in a light cheery way, “what can I do for you? How are you getting on?”
“Excellently,” said the doctor, “thanks to you. We have secured the ponies, two waggons, and two span of oxen with their drivers.”
“That’s right. Have you got your forelopers too.”
“Not yet, but I suppose there will be no difficulty about them.”
“Not the slightest. We generally have one or two black fellows eager to get a job with someone going up country. I will undertake to find them. The oxen are all right, for I have seen them. You couldn’t have had a better lot, and you are quite right too over the ponies. Now, is there anything else I can do?”