Not every man could manage a crazy, bucking
broncho in any such fashion as that; fewer still could come out of
the scrimmage, unhurt, to bow to a young woman with a cordiality
quite untinged with boyish bravado. That day at Maitland, Frazer had
registered his mental approval of the long-legged, lean Canadian
with his keen gray eyes and his wrists of bronze. He had registered
a second note of approval, that first night at Piquetberg Road, when
Weldon, with no unnecessary words, had contrived to impress upon the
mind of his captain that he was to be included in the guard to cross
the river. Totally obedient and respectful, Weldon nevertheless had
given the impression of a man who intended to win his own way.
Moreover, the direction of that way appeared to be straight towards
the front.
Meanwhile, peacefully unconscious of this diagnosis, Weldon was
sitting on the river bank, prosaically occupied in scooping out the
remaining taste left in an almost-empty jam tin. Beside him, Carew
was similarly occupied. Two more jam tins were between them and,
exactly opposite the pair of jam tins, there squatted a burly
Kaffir, young, alert and crowned with a thatch of hair which by
rights should have sprouted from the back of a sable pig.
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