CHAPTER XXXI.
JESS FINDS A FRIEND
The Boers swooped down on them with a shout, like hawks on a sparrow. John pulled up his horse and drew his revolver.
“Don’t, don’t!” cried Jess; “our only chance is to be civil;” whereon, thinking better of the matter, he replaced it, and wished the leading Boer good-day.
“What are you doing here?” asked the Dutchman; whereon Jess explained that they had a pass—which John promptly produced—and were proceeding to Mooifontein.
“Ah, Oom Croft’s!” said the Boer as he took the pass, “you are likely to meet a burying party there,” but at the time Jess did not understand what he meant. He eyed the pass suspiciously all over, and then asked how it came to be stained with water.
Jess, not daring to tell the truth, said that it had been dropped into a puddle. The Boer was about to return it when suddenly his eye fell upon Jess’s saddle.
“How is it that the girl is riding on a man’s saddle?” he asked. “Why, I know that saddle; let me look at the other side. Yes, there is a bullet-hole through the flap. That is Swart Dirk’s saddle. How did you get it?”
“I bought it from him,” answered Jess without a moment’s hesitation. “I could get nothing to ride on.”
The Boer shook his head. “There are plenty of saddles in Pretoria,” he said, “and these are not the days when a man sells his saddle to an English girl. Ah! and that other is a Boer saddle too. No Englishman has a saddle-cloth like that. This pass is not sufficient,” he went on in a cold tone; “it should have been countersigned by the local commandant. I must arrest you.”
Jess began to make further excuses, but he merely repeated, “I must arrest you,” and gave some orders to the men with him.