than being stuck away all one's life in a musty old
office, sometimes not even seeing the blessed light of day for a week at
a time, if it happens to be foggy--a miserable jet of gas the only
substitute for yonder jolly old sun. Rather! I've tried it and you
haven't. See?"

Nobody could have looked upon that simple camp without thoroughly
agreeing with the speaker. It was hot certainly, but there were trees
which afforded a cool and pleasant shade: while around for many a mile
stretched a glorious roll of bush veldt--all green and golden in the
unclouded sunlight--and the chatter of monkeys, the cackle of the wild
guinea-fowl, the shrill crow of the bush pheasant together with the
gleam of bright-winged birds glancing overhead, bespoke that this
beautiful wilderness was redundant with life. The two men lounging
there, with bronzed races and chests, their shirtsleeves turned up from
equally bronzed wrists, looked the picture of rude health: surely if
ever there was such a thing as a free life--open--untrammelled--this was
it.

The day was Sunday, which may account for the lazy way in which we found
one at any rate of the pair, spending the morning. For they had made it
a rule to do no work on that day, not, we fear, from any particularly
religious motive, but acting on the thoroughly sound and wholesome plan
of taking one day in seven "off." A thoroughly sound and wholesome
appetite had they too. When they had done, Skelsey remarked:

"Shall we go and have a shoot?"

The other, who was tugging at a knot in the strings of his tobacco bag,
looked up quickly.

"Er--no. At least I won't go," he said rather nervously. "Er--I think
I'll ride over to Blachland's."

"All right, old chap. Let's go there instead."

This did not suit Spence at all. "Don't know whether you'd care for it,
Jack. The fact is, Blachland's away."

"I see-ee!" rejoined Skelsey, significantly. "Oh-h, l-lucky Jim! How I
envy hi-im--" he hummed.

"You know you always swear you hate talking to women," said Spence
eagerly, as though anxious to apologise for or explain his
unfriendliness. "So I thought it only fair to warn you as to what you
had to expect."

"I see-ee!" repeated the other with a laugh and a wink. "Who's this?"
shading his eyes and gazing out over the veldt. "Jonah back already?"

A native was approaching, a clothed native; in fact one of their boys.
He had been despatched to a trading store, a trifling distance