"Well, shunt them back there and come along," was Carhayes' reply. "We are not all so fortunate as you, Mr Carhayes," retorted Mrs Hoste with a trifle of asperity, for this advice was to her by no means palatable. "What would you have done yourself, I should like to know, but for that accommodating cousin, who has taken all the trouble off your hands and left you free to go and get shot if you like?" "Oh, Eustace? Yes, he's a useful chap," said Carhayes complacently, beginning to cram his pipe. "What do you think the beggar has gone and done? Why, he has inspanned four or five boys from Nteya's location to help him with the _trek_! The very fellows we are trekking away from, by Jove! And they will help him, too. An extraordinary fellow, Eustace--I never saw such a chap for managing Kafirs. He can make 'em do anything." "Well, its a good thing he can. But doesn't he want to go and see some of the fun himself?" "Not he. Or, if he does, he can leave Bentley in charge and come back as soon as he has put things straight. Bentley's my man down there. I let him live at Swaanepoel's Hoek and run a little stock of his own on consideration of keeping the place in order and looking after it generally. He'll be glad enough to look after our stock now for a consideration--if Eustace gets sick of it and really does elect to come and have a shot at his `blanket friends'--Ho-ho!" The Kaffrarian Rangers were, as we have said, a corps raised in the district. The farmers composing it mounted and equipped themselves, and elected their own leaders. There was little discipline, in the military sense of the word, but the men knew each other and had thorough confidence in their leaders. They understood the natives, and were as much at home on the _veldt_ or in the bush as the Kafirs themselves. They affected no uniforms, but all were clad in a serviceable attire which should not be too conspicuous in cover--an important consideration--and all were well equipped in the way of arms and other necessaries. They asked for no pay--only stipulating that they should be entitled to keep whatever stock they might succeed in capturing from the enemy--which in many cases would be merely retaking their own. The Government, now as anxious as it had been sceptical and indifferent a month previously, gladly accepted the services of so useful a corps. The latter numbered between sixty and seventy men. This, then, was the corps to which Carhayes had attached himself, and among the ranks of which, after two or three days of enforced delay while waiting for orders--and after a characteristically off-hand farewell to the Hostes and his wife--he proceeded to take his place.