"Captain Mackenzie will no doubt buy all the animals suitable for his purpose, and I will walk across with you to his camp and get him to buy twenty ponies for your men. In this way you will be able to cover a considerable extent of ground, and give notice of any party of Boers who may ford the Orange River--for I hear that the water is sinking fast, and no doubt it can soon be crossed at many points besides the ordinary drifts. You would always be able to buy a sheep for the men, for although the English colonists are rapidly coming in, of course the Dutch are remaining. The men must carry ten pounds of flour apiece; and if they have plenty of mutton it will last them for a week." Yorke was delighted with the offer, indeed nothing could have suited him better; and after going with the colonel and arranging for the Kaffirs and ponies, he went to have a chat with his friend the colonist. "I am glad to see that you got back safely," the latter said. "Did your disguise pass you all right?" "Admirably. I went straight into the middle of a commando at Fauresmith, and learnt all that there was to learn without exciting the slightest suspicion. I hope you are doing well with your cattle." "Excellently. I am getting a much better price for them than I could have obtained a month ago--more, indeed, than at the best of times; and I am told that all my heavy horses will be bought on good terms as remounts, but that the smaller ones are too light for this sort of work. I shall try and sell them to one of the Dutch farmers, but I can't expect to get much from them; in fact, I expect I shall almost have to give them away." "Colonel Pinkerton has just made an arrangement by which you will get a fair price for twenty of them, if you have as many, for use by a score of Kaffirs who are at work under me as scouts. I don't suppose he will give you a high price for them; but at any rate he will pay you more than you would get from the Boers, who would know that you must take anything that they chose to offer." "That is good news indeed. I am sure that I should not have got more than a pound a head for them, and they are worth from seven to ten pounds. If they will give me seven apiece all round I shall be delighted." This was, indeed, the price that Yorke heard later in the day was paid for them.