For some weeks Mr. Blakeney allowed Guy to have what may be called a good time. He was anxious that the lad should not be thrust too soon into hard collar-work. There is a good deal of steady routine labour, even upon an up-country farm in South Africa, if the farmer is up-to-date and business-like, and means to take his occupation seriously. There are books to be kept; long and hard days to be spent in the saddle; heavy fencing operations, which need care, thought, and application; journeys to various market centres with troops of fat stock; and a host of other details, not all of which are exactly what may be regarded as pure pleasure or light work. Too many young Englishmen, it is to be feared, look upon stock-farming and cattle-ranching as pleasant out-of-door occupations, entailing merely an ornamental kind of existence. They picture to themselves, before going out to South Africa, a shirt-sleeve and broad-brimmed hat kind of life, in which the stock-farmer has merely to have a good time, while his flocks and herds increase about him. This sort of settler quickly becomes disillusioned, and, having wasted a thousand or two of good money--probably his father’s--returns sadly to urban life again, vowing that no one can make money by stock-farming in South Africa. But there are plenty of hard-working and successful pastoral farmers in many parts of South Africa who can testify to the excellent result of application and attention to details, united with care, foresight, energy, and experience. For a long month Mr. Blakeney or his son Tom, sometimes both of them, rode far and wide with Guy Hardcastle over the twenty-four thousand odd acres comprised in Bamborough Farm. They explored boundaries, pointed out to Guy the various beacons marking off their limits, inspected cattle, and assisted at the sinking of a well in a distant part of the estate. This well, and the erection of a windmill pump, were needed for the supply of water to the cattle in what had been so waterless a portion of the ranch that it had been hitherto practically unavailable, excellent as was the grass veldt. A good-sized basin was formed in a piece of limestone formation, where once had existed an ancient native well, now long since dry; and here, when the operations were completed, the cattle were able to slake their thirst in a cool, crystal-clear pool, which at once sent up the value of the six thousand acres on this part of the run by two hundred per cent.