"As he knows that I have come here, sir, I might ask him to hand the money over to you, as you have kindly offered to remit it to me." "Yes, it would be as well to seem as anxious as possible. When I come round this afternoon to tell you the result of my enquiries about the trains, I will look at the cart." "It is a very good one, sir, of Cape Colony make, and it only wants repainting to appear quite new." "In that case I will tell the innkeeper that if he does not know of anyone who will buy it at once, I will give you the sum he and I may value it at, and if at the end of a week he doesn't find a purchaser at that price, I will take it myself. A cart more or less makes but little difference, and you may as well have the money as let the innkeeper put it in his pocket." "But the money ought to go back to Mr. Chambers, sir." "It will be much more useful in your pocket than in his. He gave you the thing to do as you liked with, and certainly will not expect to be paid for it, and would be hurt rather than pleased at the money being sent to him. No doubt you will find uses for it." The innkeeper, however, knew of a trader in the town who wanted a good cart, and the matter was arranged in a few minutes. There was a train going that evening, and with an order signed by the military secretary at Bloemfontein for Gert Meyring and Hans Bernard, both going to join the Philippolis commando at Colesberg, accompanied by a Kaffir boy, to travel by military train, they started that evening. It was an open truck, but as they had brought blankets and horse-rugs in the cart, for sleeping on the veldt, they preferred the night journey to being exposed to the scorching rays of the sun all day. It took some fifteen hours to cover the distance between Bloemfontein and Colesberg. After getting the horses out of the truck, they saddled them, slung their rifles and bandoliers over their shoulders, strapped the blankets behind the saddles, and then rode into the town, which was little more than a long single street extending along the bottom of a very narrow valley. Peter had been most reluctant to leave his rifle behind him at Bloemfontein, and had been allowed to bring it, saying that if he were questioned he could say that it was a spare rifle belonging to Yorke. As it was notorious that in the battles of Graspan and Belmont many of the richer Boers had been attended by servants, who loaded spare rifles, and so enabled them to keep up a steady fire, Yorke had consented, as at the worst it could but be taken away for the use of some Boer with an inferior weapon, and he felt that the time might come when it would be well that Peter should be able to give efficient aid. A good many armed men were in the street, but they paid no attention to the new-comers. Yorke avoided the principal inn, where the field cornet of the commando would probably have taken up his quarters, and alighted at another of less pretension.