"I would rather be excused," answered Jack. "I want to get to Springbokfontein."
"You will reach there in good time," said the veldt-cornet. "In the interval you might do worse than see a little service under the vierkeleur. What say you? We can give you a mount and a rifle. Maartens, how are we off for horses?"
Maartens shrugged his shoulders as he replied, "We have a couple of led horses, Veldt-cornet, the roan mare, and the young horse."
"Then let him take the roan," observed the officer.
"By the way, youngster," he continued, "have you seen anything of a troop of rooineks—New Zealanders—in the district?"
"I understand that some are in this part of the country," answered Jack.
"Well, if you will go along with us, you shall see them before long," said the veldt-cornet. "We want to catch a fellow named Morton. The commandant will give a thousand pounds for the fellow, dead or alive."
Jack laughed to himself as he thought of the New Zealander's narrow escape, and wondered what the latter was doing, and whether he had made good his escape from the Diamond Valley or not.
"You know Springbokfontein, I suppose?" asked the Boer officer, after a pause.
"I have been there several times," was Jack's reply.