But everything comes to an end. One day, nearly four weeks after leaving the farm, he caught sight of the chimney-stack of the Nairobi locomotive works in the distance. Five hours later he trudged wearily into the town, conscious that he presented a deplorable and disreputable appearance. His clothes were torn and dirty; the sole of his right boot had parted from the upper and flapped as he walked, while that of the left boot had gone altogether, and he trod on his sock. He felt thoroughly knocked up, and after he had seen his animals safely penned, he could hardly drag himself to Mr. Gillespie’s house. To his surprise nobody in the streets seemed to pay the least attention to his appearance; he supposed that such sights were not uncommon; and Mr. Gillespie did not start back with the look of horror which in his self-consciousness John had expected. The coffee-planter greeted him warmly, but had no sooner taken him to his room than he whipped out a clinical thermometer and stuck it into John’s mouth. "Thought so," he said, when he examined it. "You’ve a touch of fever, and no wonder. You’ll go straight to bed, my boy. We’ll have a talk in the morning." After a hot bath, John was tucked up between the blankets and dosed with quinine by Mrs. Gillespie, and he fell asleep with a happiness and a sense of security to which he seemed to have been a stranger for years. He was better in the morning, but Mr. Gillespie would not allow him to quit his bed. "You just leave it to me," he said when John protested that he must see about selling his animals. "I’ll go and take a look at them. You won’t sell them for a day or two: they’ll be all the better for a rest. I’ve just heard from your father, by the way. He’s a gay old dog, upon my word, gadding about on the Continent. You must have written glowing accounts of the farm, or he’d have been back before this. I dare say there’s a letter for you by the same mail: you’ll find it when you get back. And how do you like ranching, eh?" They had a long talk, and Mr. Gillespie said he thought he had done very well for the first year. He laughed when John related the incidents of his march. "You’ll get used to it," he said. "It’s rather disheartening at first, but you may think yourself lucky the natives didn’t bother you. When I first came out here ten years ago I had a running fight with one of the tribes for a week, and lost practically everything I possessed. Things are safer now." John told him about the desertion of Juma with the rifles, and the plight from which he had rescued Ferrier.