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"Besides," added John Skyd, lifting the iron pot off the fire and setting it down, "I suppose that floods are not frequent, so we don't need to trouble ourselves about 'em. Come, Dally, you'll join us?" "No, thank 'ee. Much obleeged all the same, but I've got to prepare breakfast for our own party. Goin' to begin plantin' soon?" "As soon as ever we can get the soil broken up," replied Dobson.
"Now, friends," said Considine to the brothers Skyd, who had by that time been joined by the hunting partners, "there is a matter on which we must consult and act without delay." Here he told of Conrad Marais's departure with the boers across the frontier, and added that if the party was to be saved at all it must be gone about instantly.
Before morning Considine was back in Conrad Marais' parlour, relating his adventures among the Bergenaars with a half-belief that the whole affair was nothing more than a romantic dream. Seated one evening at the door of their dug-out hut or cavern on the banks of the river, the three brothers Skyd discussed the affairs of the colony and smoked their pipes.
"Not too soon," replied John Skyd, taking a seat on the same convenient lounge. "It has cost us something: houses burnt all over the settlement, from end to end; crops destroyed; cattle carried off, and, worst of all, trade almost ruined except in the case of lucky fellows like you, Bob, who sell to the troops."
Returning to the village, the hunters found Eno the chief, and, after expressing much satisfaction at having arrived in time to lend him effectual aid at so critical a period, they presented him with gifts of brass wire and cotton cloth, from the stores in Skyd and Dobson's waggons. The chief expressed his gratitude in glowing terms, and begged the hunters to stay with him for some time.
The corners of his mouth turned down instead of up, thereby giving his grave countenance an unusually arch expression. "Why, what do you mean, you cynical Scot!" demanded John Skyd. "Our shoulders are broad enough, are they not? nearly as broad as your own." "Oo' ay, yer shoothers are weel aneugh, but I wadna gie much for yer heeds or haunds."
It was an extremely full, prosperous-looking store, and in the midst of it were to be seen, sitting on the counters, James and Robert Skyd, both looking bluffer and stronger than when we last met them, though scarcely a day older. James and Robert were the managing partners of this prosperous firm; Dobson and John Skyd were what the latter styled the hunting partners.
The brothers Skyd, being free from precious burdens, marched next, to be ready to support the guide in case of accident, and to watch as well as guard the passage of dangerous places by those in rear.
"What did you say you were sowing?" asked Brook, with a peculiar smile. "Carrot-seed," answered Robert Skyd. "If your carrot-seed is sown there," said George Dally, pointing with a broad grin to the trench, "it's very likely to come up in England about the time it does here, by sendin' its roots right through the world!" "How? what do you mean?"
"You see, sir, we've got to go back pretty well to where we was in 1820, and begin it all over again. It is somewhat aggrawatin'! Might have been avoided, too, if they'd kep' a few more troops on the frontier." "Well, Jack, the treaty is signed at last," said Robert Skyd to his brother, as he sat on his counter in Grahamstown, drumming with his heels.
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