“Like their impudence,” said Rifle, indignantly.
“Of course. Never thought of that,” cried Man.
Just then the captain, a double-barrelled rifle in his hand, and well mounted, was giving a final look round, when the dirty-looking fellow lounged up with about a dozen more, and addressed him as duly set down at the beginning of the first chapter.
But the laughter was drowned by the sound of wheels and the trampling of hoofs; the wagons and carts moved off, each with a boy for driver, and Uncle Munday came last, mounted like his brother, to act the part of herdsman, an easy enough task, for the cattle and spare horses followed the wagons quietly enough after the fashion of gregarious beasts.
The little caravan had gone on like this for about a mile along a track which was growing fainter every hundred yards, when Man Bedford gave his whip a crack, and turned to look back toward the sea.
“We’re off now, and no mistake,” he said to himself. “What fun to see Uncle John driving cattle like that! why, we ought to have had Master Ashantee—Tam o’ Shanter—to do that job. I wonder whether we shall see any fellows up the country as black as he.”
His brother and cousin were musing in a similar way, and all ended by thinking that they were off on an adventure that ought to prove exciting, since it was right away west into an almost unknown land.