"I'm jolly glad, Sergeant, you warned me, and better still, hit the brute. I'm awfully obliged to you."
"Don't mention it, Jack. And now for that little blue reef!" responded the sergeant. "I trust we shall be able to find it."
"I think I can locate it," said Jack; "it is somewhere down here."
"Right you are, Jack," observed Morton. "The side of the donga rose almost perpendicularly, I remember. A band of blue clay runs horizontally along the gneiss. Why, here we are. This is the very place where the nigger said he found the pebble you showed me. I've come prepared this time, Jack;" and the sergeant drew a formidable-looking bill-hook from his belt.
"I've gone one better than that," said Jack, with a smile, as he took a small pickaxe from his pocket and placed it in a shaft which he had brought from the farm.
"The very thing, Jack!" cried Morton. "Why, you're a trump!"
"Living on the veldt makes you sharp," said Jack drily.
Morton took the pickaxe and began hewing at the band of blue clay.
"No, leave it alone, Jack," said the sergeant, as Jack stooped to pick up the clay. "I may hit you, and that would be a very bad ending to what I consider a promising career."
"All right, Sergeant," responded Jack cheerfully. "Then I'll stand by and see you do the hard work, while I share the profits."