"We thought of that, sir;" Chris turned to his band, "Change caps!" All pulled field-service caps from their pockets, took off the soft felts, rolled them up and forced them into their valises, and put on the caps.
"That is excellent!" Captain Brookfield exclaimed. "That certainly alters your appearance altogether, and as far as your figures could be made out through a glass, it could be seen that you are an irregular body of some sort. And this can be still more plainly seen if, as I should advise you, you always ride in fours when you are approaching our lines; there will then be little chance of a mistake being made. Where did you pick up all those horses?"
"We bought them yesterday from a farmer named Duncan, who has brought them down from his place near Dundee."
"Ah! that accounts for it; he is one of the best-known horse-breeders in the colony. I had not heard that he had come down."
"He only arrived two days ago, sir. We were fortunate to hear of it, and some of us rode over early yesterday and were lucky enough to secure them."
"You were lucky. There are several mounted corps being formed here and at Durban, and horses will go up in price rapidly. Where is he staying'?"
"About a mile and a half farther out, sir. If you want horses I should think that you had better go on at once, for he told me that he had sold sixty yesterday, but that very few of them were anything like as good horses as these."
"No. People are subscribing handsomely, but we cannot afford to mount our troopers on such horses as these. A good many gentlemen have found their own horses, and of course will be well mounted; but a good, sound, country horse is all we can afford for the others; they are excellent for ordinary work, though, of course, not so fast as yours, nor quite so big. Your horses have all a strain of English thoroughbred blood, and if you should at any time have to ride for it there would be little chance of the Boers overtaking you, though some of them are very well mounted, for the two things a Boer will spend money on, are his horse and his rifle. And when do you start?"
"We are going to-morrow morning. I went to the station-master yesterday evening and arranged for trucks for the horses to be attached to an early train to Dundee. We want to get up in time to see the first of it, and we should lose three days if we were to travel by road."