The Fullertons' house was on the very outskirts of the township, and she stepped forth straight on to the open veldt. The dew lay, sparkling and silvery, upon the green mimosa fronds, and made a diamond carpet of the parched burnt-up grass upon which her steps left footprints. How beautiful was the early morning in this fresh open land. The call and twitter of birds made strange unknown melody as she passed on her way, leaving the shining zinc roofs of the straggling township, turning her face toward the free open country. There lay the race-course, away on her left, and her face was set toward the dark bushy ridge of Ehlatini. Two `go-away' birds sped before her, uttering their cat-like call, as, with crest perkily erect and flicking their tails, they danced from frond to frond. How cool the inviting depths of that bush line looked, billowing down the slope of the hill, challenging exploration of their bosky recesses. Clare was in splendid physical form, and walked with a straight willowy swing from the hips, rejoicing in the sheer physical exercise of her youth and strength. She looked up at the ridge above her, then back at the scattered township behind. To gain the summit would mean a fine view, also taking in the far, unknown stretch of country beyond. She had never wandered this way before, and it would be a novelty and something to expatiate upon to those lazy people whom she had left behind in a state of prolonged slumber. Slumber! and on such a morning. The morning air blew balmy and warm, straight down from the Zambesi and beyond; straight down from the heart of the great mysterious continent. Later on it would be hot, oppressive. And in the shade of the mimosa, and wild fig, and mahobo-hobo, birds piped and called to each other. Clare struck into a narrow path, which wound up, a mere cattle-track, through the thickness of the bush. It was delightful this roaming about a wild land alone. Soon, with no great effort or tax upon her powers of wind and limb, she had gained the summit of the ridge. And then, on the farther side, other ridges went ribbing away in the distance, like billows of dark verdure; but on the right, where they ended, sloping abruptly to the more even ground of the gently undulating country beyond, far away in a film of light and vista, to lose itself in a hazy blue on the skyline nearly a hundred miles distant, stretched a vast mysterious wilderness. Then she sat down beneath the shade of a large overhanging wild fig, to take it all in.