The building was a fair-sized oblong one, constructed of the usual wattle and "dagga" as to the walls, and with a high-pitched roof of thatch. Internally it was divided into three compartments--a sleeping-room, a living-room, and the store itself, the latter as large as the two first put together. From end to end of this was a long counter, about a third of which was partitioned off as a public bar. Rows of shelves lined the walls, and every conceivable article seemed represented--blankets and rugs; tinned food and candles; soap and cheese; frying-pans and camp-kettles; cooking-pots and high boots; straps and halters; Boer tobacco and Manila cheroots; all jostling each other, down even to accordions and concertinas, seemed only to begin the list of general "notions" which, either stacked on shelves or hanging from the beam which ran along the building parallel with the spring of the roof, filled every available space. Bags of mealies, too, and flour stood against the further wall; and the shelves backing the bar department were lined with a plentiful and varied assortment of bottles. Not much less varied was the type of customer who was prone to sample their contents. Miners working for a wage, independent prospectors, transport riders, now and then a company promoter or a mining engineer or surveyor, settlers on farms, an occasional brace of troopers of the Matabeleland Mounted Police--would all roll up at Jekyll's in turn; but by reason of the wide distances over which the sparse population was scattered, there were seldom more than a dozen gathered together there at once--usually less. But even there the characteristics of the gathering were much akin to those pervading similar groups as seen in older civilisation--the bore simple and the bore reiterative, the local Ananias, usually triplicated; the assumptive bore; the literary critic-- the last especially in full bloom after a few rounds of "squareface" or John Dewar--and other varieties. Such characteristics, however, were well known to the sound residue of the assemblage, who would delight to "draw" the individual owners thereof--after the few rounds aforesaid. Within the store and canteen part of the building about a dozen men were gathered when Moseley and Tarrant rode up. All were attired in the usual light marching order of the country--shirt and trousers, high boots and wide-brimmed hat. Some were lounging against the counter, others squatting on sacks or packing-cases, and all were smoking. Jekyll, himself, a tall man with a grizzled beard, and who had been a good many years in the country before the entry of the first Pioneer force, was dispensing drinks, with the help of his assistant, a young Englishman who had been ploughed for his degree at Oxford. To several of these the new arrivals were known, and forthwith there was a fresh call on the resources of the bar department.