she made no answer, at first. they were in shade now, and she had flung off her sun-bonnet, and her glance was turned forth upon the wide veldt lying beneath, while the light breeze stirred the little escaped rings of her dark hair. no wonder he had found it difficult to get his charge away from haakdoornfontein, thought the only spectator. the thought was quickly followed by another. was he so unaffectedly anxious to get away from it himself? well, why should he be? this bright, beautiful child had brought such sunshine into their daily life, why should he not enjoy his share of it simply because he was no longer young? harley greenoak had a strong sense of the ridiculous. now he saw himself, rough, middle-aged, rapidly turning grey, and secretly he laughed; but it was a laugh not altogether free from wistfulness.
“what an experience yours must have been!” she went on. “i suppose you can’t even count the number of people whose lives you have saved?”
“i never tried—er—and excuse me, miss brandon, but—you didn’t bring me up here to make me brag, did you?”
“to make you brag?” she repeated. “that would be a feat—one that i don’t believe any one ever accomplished yet.”
“i hope not. i’m only a plain man, miss brandon. i don’t know that i ever had much education, but i’ve always held a theory of my own that every one is put into the world to be of some use, and i’ve always tried to act up to it.”
“haven’t you just, and succeeded too? i suppose all south africa knows that.”
the soft-voiced flattery, the glance that accompanied it, were calculated to stir the pulses of even so strong a man as harley greenoak, and this he himself realised while striving to neutralise their effect.
“when i was young,” he went on, “people used to look on me as a sort of ne’er-do-well, something not far short of a scamp, because i elected for a wandering life instead of what they called ‘settling down to something.’ perhaps they were right, perhaps not.”
“they were idiots,” broke forth hazel, impulsively.
“i don’t know,” went on the other, with a smile at the interruption. “anyhow, i believe in a man taking to what he’s most fitted for, and i’ve lived to know that this is the life i’m the most fitted for. some might call it an idle life, but if i may say so without bragging, i believe it has been of more service to other people than if i had launched out in the ‘settling down’ line of business.”
“i should think so indeed,” said the girl, her beautiful eyes aglow with sympathy and admiration. secretly she was delighted. she had made harley greenoak talk—and not merely talk, but talk about himself—a thing which, if popular report spoke truly, no one had ever succeeded in doing yet.
“once i tried farming, but it was no manner of use. the wandering instinct was in my blood, i suppose. even transport riding—and i was pretty lucky at that while it lasted—was too slow for me. too much sticking to the road, you see. i’ve been a little of everything, but,”—with a whimsical laugh—“i certainly never expected to turn bear-leader in my old age.”
“uncommonly lucky for the ‘bear,’” pronounced hazel.
“well, the said ‘bear’ is apt to get into hot water rather easily. otherwise he hasn’t got any vice.”
“and you are apt to get him out of hot water rather easily. oh, i’ve heard all about it.”
“that was part of my charge. it was all in the day’s work. over and about that, i’ve grown quite fond of the boy. he’s as taking a lad as i’ve ever known.”
hazel agreed, and promptly turned the subject from the belauded dick selmes to other matters. the while, she was thinking; and if her companion could have read her thoughts—and even his penetration couldn’t do that—why, it is possible that he would have run up against the biggest surprise he had ever experienced in his life.
even so harley greenoak was conscious of some modicum of surprise; and that was evoked by the way in which his companion was making him talk—drawing him, so to say—and, somehow, the experience was a pleasant one. not until afterwards did it occur to him that he had come near being thrown a trifle off his balance by the soft insidious flatteries of this beautiful girl, reclining there in an attitude of easy grace. the warm, sunlit air, the height of space, looking down, as it were, upon two worlds, the free openness of it all was greenoak’s natural heritage, and under no other surroundings could he be so thoroughly at his best. so she led him on to talk, and he had a dry, quaint, philosophical way of handling things which amused and appealed to her immensely. suddenly the report of a gun, just beneath, together with the cry of dogs hot-foot on a quarry.
“that’s dick. he’s worked round to this side of the farm,” said greenoak. “shall we go down and see what he’s been doing, for it strikes me we’ve been sitting here rather a long time?”
“oh, you have found it long, then?” with mock offended air, then colouring slightly as she realised what an utter banality she had fired off for the benefit of a man of harley greenoak’s calibre.
“no, i haven’t,” he answered quite evenly. “i’ve enjoyed the lounge and the talk very much.” and then hazel felt more disgusted with herself still.
“let’s go back to the house,” she said. “i believe it’s getting rather hot.”
she chatted as they wound their way downwards along the bush-path, but not so brightly as when they had come up it. somewhat wonderingly, greenoak noted that she displayed no interest in the absent dick. the latter arrived not long after themselves.
“there you are, miss brandon, i’ve redeemed my pledge,” he cried. “got a whacking big bush-buck ram. do come and look at it.”
“got him just under bromvogel nek—eh, dick?” said greenoak.
“yes. but—how did you know?”
“heard your shot, and the dogs on to something wounded. we took a walk up there, miss brandon and i.”
“oh—” and dick selmes stopped short, and then thought what an ass he was making of himself. so that was why hazel had been so anxious for him to go out and hunt! old greenoak was coming out of his shell—coming out with a vengeance.
as they went outside kleinbooi, the fingo, was in the act of offloading the quarry. it certainly was a fine ram, but dick noticed with inward disgust and heart-searching that hazel seemed to show but little interest in it, or in his own doings. and by this time it had become of very great importance to him that she should feel interest in his own doings.
“what would you say to moving on, dick?” said greenoak that afternoon. “we’ve been here a good while, you know.”
the other’s face fell.
“yes, i’m afraid we have,” he said. “but where shall we go next?”
greenoak gave him some inkling of the bearing of the commandant’s letter, and the idea caught on, but with half the alacrity wherewith it would have been received had a certain entrancing young person not been a fellow-guest at haakdoornfontein.
“when shall we start?” asked dick, somewhat ruefully.
“how about to-morrow?”
“couldn’t we make it the day after? come now, greenoak. a day more or less can’t make any difference.”
“well, no more it can—at this stage,” was the enigmatical answer. as a matter of fact, in the speaker’s inner mind it was an ambiguous one, “we’ll break away the day after.”
“going on, are you?” said old hesketh, when the announcement was made to him. “well, i’m sorry. but i suppose our young buffalo hunter’s spoiling to get on to bigger game. where are you trekking for now, greenoak?”
“the transkei.”
“ho-ho-ho! you may get on to bigger game there,” chuckled the old man, significantly. “yes, bigger game than ever slaang kloof can find you. think there’s anything in these reports, greenoak?”
“never can tell. i happen to know there is a simmer stirring all the border tribes. it’ll depend on how the thing’s handled.”
“if mr greenoak has the handling of it, things won’t go very wrong, uncle eph,” interrupted hazel.
“now, miss brandon, you are either chaffing me or giving me credit for powers of magic which i don’t possess,” protested the object of this exordium.
“i’m doing neither,” replied the girl, confidently.
dick selmes restrained an impulse to look quickly up—they were at table. of late hazel seemed never tired of booming greenoak, he told himself, and now all her talks with himself came up. these, somehow, always led round to greenoak.
he looked with renewed interest at his guide and mentor. the latter was a splendid fellow, as the girl had more than once declared, but—elderly; easily old enough to be her father. now he, dick selmes, had been coming to the conclusion that life apart from hazel brandon was going to be a very poor affair.
the propinquity had done it—that, and the bright, sweet charms of the girl herself. he had been realising that the time must come when they would have to part, and now that it had come, why, he would put his fortune to the test. surely it could have but one issue. they had been so much together, long rides, long rambles, or wandering about among the bush solitudes, and they had always agreed so well. she had always shown such pleasure in his company, surely she would accept it for life. and then came the discomforting thought that just of late they had not been so much together. that morning, for instance, she had insisted on him going away from her for half the day, while she rambled off with greenoak. what did it mean? poor dick began to feel very sore, and partly so with greenoak. well, he would put matters to the test, and that at once.
but this was not so easy, for the simple reason that he found no opportunity, and did not know how to make one. hazel was as bright and cordial as ever, but affected to be busy, and there was no means of getting her alone to himself. all the good understanding between them seemed to have evaporated. she was avoiding him—deliberately avoiding him—there could be no doubt about that.
in his soreness and disgust he seized his gun, and started off on foot. he had not gone far when he heard greenoak’s voice behind him.
“going alone, dick? better not. you seem hipped; man, and i don’t think your own company’s good for you.”
dick’s first impulse was to make an ungracious reply, but he conquered it.
“yes, it is,” he said. “every one’s tired of me now, so i didn’t want to bore anybody.”
“well, we’ll go and lay up at the draai for anything that’s moving. but it’s early yet.”
it was afternoon, and their departure was fixed for the following morning. dick felt desperate.
“hang it, greenoak,” he burst forth at last. “you don’t know how i hate leaving this place. had such jolly times here.”
“how you hate leaving somebody on this place, was what you should have said. eh, dick?”
“well, yes, if you put it quite so plainly. the worst of it is, i can’t get an opportunity of speaking to her alone. couldn’t you manage to make one for me, greenoak? you can do about everything,”—eagerly.
“not that. even if i could i wouldn’t. my dear dick, i’m responsible to your father; and i won’t help in that sort of thing. you’ve fallen a victim to propinquity, as many another has done before you, and the best thing for you is to go away—as we are going—and see how this—er—fancy stands the test of time and different surroundings. it is evident that the other party to the difficulty is not in a hurry to clench matters, which shows her sterling sense. no. try my prescription.”
this and other wise doctrines did greenoak preach, and at last his charge became in some measure reconciled to the plan. anyway, he was not going to make an ass of himself, he declared.
