AT THE FRONT
At five o’clock the lads from Johannesburg again
met and reported the result of the afternoon’s
work. The nine Mauser rifles had been bought,
and six thousand rounds of ammunition had been purchased.
This appeared an excessive amount, but as there might
be a difficulty in obtaining this ammunition, they
bought up all that could be found in the town.
Peters and his party had chosen the horses for the
troop. The farmer was a well-known breeder of
good stock, and was glad to dispose of some of them
at a fair price in order to lessen their number.
He had already had several enquiries from corps that
were being raised, but the prices were higher than
could be paid for ordinary troopers, though several
had been bought by officers. The lot the lads
had picked out had been put aside, and they had given
the farmer fifty pounds earnest-money, to hold them
till the next morning.
“They are as good a looking lot of horses as
I ever saw,” Peters said, “in fact, by
a long way the best. I always heard that he was
one of the largest breeders of good horses in South
Africa. He had eight or ten extraordinarily good
ones, but, of course, he wanted extra prices for these;
but from the rest—and he has some three
hundred of them—he let us choose any we
liked at one price, and I think I can say that we shall
be as well mounted a corps as any out here. Of
course we avoided the showy-looking horses, and chose
those specially suited to the country and likely to
be fast. Mr. Duncan had several thoroughbreds
from home, and there is no doubt that his stock has
benefited by it; they are all of the country type,
sturdy and compact, and yet somewhat finer in the
limb than any I ever saw in the Transvaal. We
were delighted with them.”
All the lads were accustomed from childhood to horses,
but those Chris had selected as the committee of inspection
were admitted by their friends to be the best judges
of horseflesh in the party, their fathers being wealthy
men who always bought the finest horses money could
obtain.
“We will go over in a body to-morrow,”
Chris said, “and pay for them and bring them
back. We are lucky indeed to have got hold of
such a good lot. Are they pretty even animals,
Peters?”
“Yes, I really don’t think there is anything
to choose between them.”
“Well then, the fair way will be, to make one-and-twenty
tickets with as many numbers and fasten one to the
mane of each horse, then we will put another twenty-one
numbers into a hat and draw them; in that way everyone
will be satisfied. Those of you who have not got
their money from their people had better ask them
for it this evening, so that we can settle up to-morrow
for the horses and rifles and ammunition. The
hundred pounds we have each been promised will well
cover all our expenses up to the moment we start,
and I should think leave us with something like twenty
