as more particularly to do.

At the points of separation, where the long column broke up, a halt was
made, while many farewells and good wishes were said.

"So you're gaun to settle thereawa'?" said Sandy Black to John Skyd and
his brothers as they stood on an eminence commanding a magnificent view
of the rich plains and woodlands of the Zuurveld.

"Even so, friend Black," replied John, "and sorry am I that our lot is
not to be cast together. However, let's hope that we may meet again ere
long somewhere or other in our new land."

"It is quite romantic," observed James Skyd, "to look over this vast
region and call it our own,--at least, with the right to pick and choose
where we feel inclined. Isn't it, Bob?"

To this Bob replied that it was, and that he felt quite like the
children of Israel when they first came in sight of the promised land.

"I hope we won't have to fight as hard for it as they did," remarked
Frank Dobson.

"It's my opeenion," said Sandy Black, "that if we haena to fight _for
it_, we'll hae to fight a bit to _keep_ it."

"Perhaps we may," returned John Skyd, "and if so, fighting will be more
to my taste than farming--not that I'm constitutionally pugnacious, but
I fear that my brothers and I shall turn out to be rather ignorant
cultivators of the soil."

Honest Sandy Black admitted that he held the same opinion.

"Well, we shall try our best," said the elder Skyd, with a laugh; "I've
a great belief in that word `_try_'.--Goodbye, Sandy." He held out his
hand.

The Scot shook it warmly, and the free-and-easy brothers, after bidding
adieu to the rest of the Scotch party, who overtook them there, diverged
to the right with their friend Frank Dobson, and walked smartly after
their waggons, which had gone on in advance.

"Stoot chields they are, an' pleesant," muttered Sandy, leaning both
hands on a thick cudgel which he had cut for himself out of the bush,
"but wofu' ignorant o' farmin'."

"They'll make their mark on the colony for all that," said a quiet voice
at Sandy's elbow.

Turning and looking up, as well as round, he encountered the hazel eyes
and open countenance of Hans Marais.

"Nae doot, nae doot, they'll mak' their mark, but it'll no' be wi' the
pleugh, or I'm sair mista'en. Wull mair o' the settlers be pairtin'
frae us here?"

Hans, although ignorant of the dialect in which he was addressed,
understood enough to make out its drift.

"Yes," he replied, "several parti