"Good-bye, Greenoak."
"Good-bye, Sir Anson."
"No need to repeat my absolute confidence in leaving him in your hands,"
went on the latter. "You're already begun by saving his life."
"Oh, as to that I only helped him. He'd have been all right anyhow,"
replied Greenoak. "And," he added, "you won't mind my reminding you of
one agreement--that of that subject we have heard more than enough!"
"I agreed to nothing of the sort. It's a subject of which we could not
hear enough! Well, Greenoak, when your wanderings with the boy are
over, come back home with him and make a good long stay at our place,
though we have nothing more ferocious to shoot than pheasants and hares.
Is that a promise?"
"Delighted, Sir Anson."
The above conversation took place in the otherwise empty smoking-room of
the Port Elizabeth Club. The old gentleman was returning to England
that afternoon, incidentally by the same liner that had brought them
out. It would be more comfortable, he reckoned, than returning by a
strange boat, and the sooner Dick set off on his travels the better; a
theory, by the way, which was held by Dick even more firmly than by his
father. The said Dick now put in his appearance.
"Time, dad," he said, comparing his watch with the mantelpiece clock.
"The last launch, you know, and she won't wait. So come along."
"Good-bye again, Greenoak," said Sir Anson, as the two men heartily
gripped hands. "And don't forget your promise."
"Good-bye to you, Sir Anson. And I won't."
So Dick and his father betook themselves to the landing-place, and
Harley Greenoak betook himself to lunch. With characteristic judgment
he had divined that father and son would prefer to be alone together at
the last, and so had refrained from seeing the old gentleman off to the
ship. Now as he sat in the club dining-room he was thinking, and his
thoughts, needless to say, ran upon the charge he had just undertaken.
To that end he was rather glad there was nobody he knew in the room.
Needless to say, too, that after the episode off Danger Point, which
might so nearly have ended in tragedy, the tendency now among his
fellow-passengers was to make very much of a hero of Dick Selmes, and
more especially did this hold good of the "fair" section thereof. It
was as well, perhaps, decided Harley Greenoak, that only a day or two
remained for the absorption of all this adulation. Towards himself the
tendency was not so marked, for which he was unaffectedly glad. He had
borne part in too many strange and perilous episodes in his time for
one, more or less, to afflict him with "swelled head." It was all in
the day's work.
Dick Selmes, of course, had plenty of invitations, and could have got
through six months easily before he had run through them all. But not
to this end had he been placed in charge of Harley Greenoak. The latter
meant him to see something of the hard and adventurous life of the
country, even of its perils, and this Dick could scarcely effect by
pleasant stays at this or that comfortable stock farm, with sport made
easy; perchance, too, flirting like the mischief with this or that
pretty daughter of his host _pro tem_. All of which Greenoak had put to
him square and straight, and Dick Selmes had whole-heartedly agreed.
"I don't want to fool about, old chap," he had said. "I want to see
something of the real thing."
"Thought you would, Dick," had been the answer. "Well, I see we're
going to make a real up-country man of you before we've done."
Thinking over these things Greenoak sat. Then deciding that Dick would
be returning from the ship about now, he concluded to stroll down and
meet him.
He left the club. From the steep hill leading down to Main Street there
was a view of the bay and the shipping, the homeward-bound liner flying
the blue peter and sending up a thickening volume of smoke, while away
behind the Winterhoek mountains rose soft and hazy against the unclouded
sky.
"Hi!--hallo, Greenoak," and a hand dropped on his shoulder from behind;
but he did not start, his nerves were in far too good training for that.
He only stopped.
"That you, Simcox? How are you?"
The man thus addressed was about Greenoak's own age, hard, wiry,
weather-beaten. A typical colonist of the downright rough-and-ready
type. Now he exclaimed:
"Well, this is a surprise. And what brings you down here?"
The other told him.
"Rum thing, isn't it," he said with a laugh, "that at my time of life I
should start out in the bear-leading line? Well, this is a particularly
nice young chap, so that the job's likely to turn out `clovery' all
round."
"So?" said Simcox. "Why not bring him out to my place. We could get up
a hunt or two, if he's fond of sport."
The very thing, decided Greenoak. The question of how and where to make
a start was solved, so he answered:
"He just is. Well then, Simcox, thanks awfully, and we'll come. When?"
"Now. To-morrow morning."
"But we've got no horses."
"I can drive you out--that is, if that young Britisher can do without
top-hats and swallow-tail suits. No room in the cart for all that sort
of thing."
"He'll have to. Why, here he comes. This is an old friend of mine,
Dick," he went on, introducing them. "He's got a farm out on the
borders of the Addo Bush, and we're going out there with him to-morrow
to do a little hunting. How's that?"
"Ripping," answered Dick, brightening up, for he had been a little
"down" after his recent farewell. "Perfectly, absolutely ripping."
"We're a bit rough and tumble out at our place, you know," said the
stock farmer, who was appraising his guest-elect. "No champagne and
cigars and all that sort of thing. Eh, Greenoak?"
The latter nodded.
"I don't expect or want luxuries, Mr Simcox," answered Dick. "Shall I
tell you what I do want?"
"What?"
"To shoot as many of your bucks and things as lean."
"You're heartily welcome to."
And Simcox laughed good-naturedly, and opined that Greenoak's
"bear-leading" would be no very trying job after all.
"He'll do," he pronounced, with an approving nod towards the young
fellow.