Hans' face brightened up greatly when he was told that he was freed from all other duties, and was to consider himself entirely at Yorke's disposal--a young Kaffir being at once engaged to perform the work he had previously done--and henceforth no complaint could be made of his laziness. Whatever the hour at which Yorke wanted to start, the horses were ready for him, and the boys were often out on the veldt before anyone else in the house was moving. Yorke threw himself into his work with ardour, for it suited him admirably. There were the cattle to look after, and sometimes long rides to be undertaken in search of animals that had strayed. The horses gave little trouble. A few bundles of freshly-cut grass were carried to them every morning, and with the stream handy to them they had the sense to know that they could do no better elsewhere. Several Kaffir labourers cut the corn-cobs and carried them up to a large shed near the house, while the stalks and leaves were piled into a stack for mixing with the hay in the winter. On many farms all this was burnt as fuel, but the colonist had, soon after he became master of the farm, planted fifty acres of fir-trees on the slopes of one of the valleys, and the clearings of these furnished an abundant stock of firewood, and indeed added materially to the returns of the farm by the sale of the surplus to neighbours. Every day Yorke practised for an hour with the rifle, firing, not at a target, which, with its white square, resembles nothing that a soldier would have to aim at in a battle, but at some mark on a stone on the hillside, or a block of wood of the size of a man's head, half hidden in a tussock of coarse grass on the veldt. This block Hans always carried with him when they were going shooting. Yorke practised judging distance on level and broken ground, both from the saddle and on foot, guessing it as nearly as he could, and then stepping it. At the end of four months he could judge very closely the distance of any object he saw up to seven or eight hundred yards, and was tolerably sure of hitting it. He had practised, too, shooting from the saddle. After he had been there a short time Mr. Allnutt, seeing that he could sit any horse on the farm, had given him one of his own, which was as yet unbroken. Yorke took great pains in training it, teaching it to halt when at full gallop, to remain immovable while he fired from the saddle, or, standing by it, used it as a rest for his barrel. It would lie down when he told it, and come at his whistle. Its sire was an English hunter which Mr. Allnutt had bought to improve the strain of his horses, so that it was a faster, as well as a more powerful, animal than the native-bred horses, while possessing an equal amount of hardiness and endurance.