a vacant and
abstracted manner.

"Not I, indeed, if only I might get it," answered Gerard, wearily.
"Why, I was going to see about putting my new saddle on the sale, when
we met each other. I've had to part with things already to raise the
wind."

"That hard up, are you? Well, if you ain't particular to a hair, I've
been turning over a scheme. What would you say to going an up-country
trip with me?"

"What?" almost shouted Gerard, half starting from his seat. "An
up-country trip with you? You can't mean it!"

"Keep your hair on, Ridgeley," rejoined Dawes, with a half-indulged
smile, for although the best-hearted and the most equably dispositioned
fellow in the world, he was of the "dry" order of being, and seldom
laughed outright. "Don't get excited; that's never sound policy. But
just turn the idea over in your mind a bit, and then you can let me
know. I'm loading up two waggons now for a trading trip away beyond the
Zulu country. Well, it occurs to me that you took so kindly to driving
a waggon, and all to do with it on our way up here, that you might be
useful to me. You'd pick up all there is to be learnt in that line the
first day. What do you say to the idea?"

But just then Gerard was nearly incapable of reply. A lump seemed to
rise in his throat. All the futile efforts of the past few weeks rose
before his mind; his loneliness, the certainty of approaching
destitution. And now this man with his offhand friendliness, who was
thus holding him out a helping hand, seemed as an angel sent from
heaven. He managed to stutter out at last that it seemed almost too
good to be true.

"All right," said the other, kindly; "then that's settled. I can't give
you any pay, but I'll give you the run of your teeth, and a small
commission on the takings of the trip after the trip's over. The said
trip, by the way, may last a year, or maybe more."

"I don't care if it lasts ten," said Gerard, eagerly.

"It isn't any good for you to hang on here with the notion of getting
anything out of Anstey," pursued Dawes, with rare tact affecting to
believe that that was Gerard's object in remaining there, and so to
lessen the latter's sense of obligation to himself. "He's the most
slippery fish that ever kept out of gaol. I'm afraid you'd never see a
farthing of your coin back again, even if you were armed with as many
papers to prove the transaction as a Supreme Court lawyer. He'll have
been sold up by now, lock