"Your esteemed order shall be punctually attended to," said the Bengali. "The honourable gentleman shall smack his lips and feel jolly well bucked up. I will do him tiptop."
[CHAPTER THE TENTH--Driving Sheep to Market]
"I say, Halliday, you're in clover here," said Ferrier, as the two sat smoking in the bungalow after Said Mohammed had made their hearts glad with a capital dinner. "My grandfather made his pile ranching in Manitoba, and you'll do the same here."
John laughed. "We're not paying our way at present," he said, "and I know my father grudged the money for his passage home again so soon. He'll grudge it still more now that his journey has turned out useless, and there are doctors' bills to pay in the bargain."
The two young men had exchanged confidences during the latter part of their march to the farm. Charles Ferrier's father had been called to the Canadian bar, but he had never practised, his fortune being sufficient to keep him and his family in something more than comfort, and to pay for the sporting expeditions which were his real interest in life. Charles, who was twenty years old, had just come down from the McGill university, and his father had brought him to East Africa to "give him a run," as he put it, before he settled down to work.
"And his ambition for me was that I should enter the Canadian legislature," said he, with a wry face. "It's not work much after my mind; I'd prefer ranching like my grandfather. Poor father! D'you think I ought to stick to his notion now that he's gone?"
"I think every man should follow his own bent," said John. "The mischief is we mayn't know till it's too late what our bent is. For instance, I like this life out here, but I don't know I'll succeed at it, and some day I may eat my heart out because I didn't take up law, as my father wished. He's a good sort, and didn't urge it. Well, khansaman, what is it?" he asked, as Said Mohammed entered.
"Entreating your pardon, sir, Coja has made a discovery and is in an excessive state of amazement, jolly well flabbergasted, as it were. He declares that when you went on donkeys to visit the honourable gent you took three rifles marked with initials D.H., but lo! when he examines the weapons brought back, he finds four. Q.E.D."
"That's rum, certainly," said John. "How did one of our rifles get into the hands of your men, Ferrier? We took three, as Coja says. Your messenger had one."
"I don't know. Wait a bit, though: didn't you bring three rifles into camp? Of course: you took one from the man you half throttled outside our boma. But how could that be marked with your initials?"