Page:The Toll of the Bush.pdf/48

The visitor was a young man of fair complexion, with gray-blue eyes and light moustache. The eyes were full of observation and humour, but the cheeks and jaw seemed fixed in an inflexible solemnity. A dog was running at his horse’s heels, and he had a gun across the saddle in front of him and a net of game swinging from his shoulder. Both he and his horse were a good deal mud-bespattered.

‘What brings you to this benighted spot?’ Geoffrey asked when they had shaken hands.

‘I was in the neighbourhood,’ Sandy said, his eyes roaming critically over the section, ‘so I thought I might as well look you up. Getting to be strangers a bit, ain’t you?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Geoffrey slowly; ‘but get off your horse and come in.’

Sandy looked meditatively at his dog, who was running in and out amongst the high fern on the margin of the road. ‘I’m looking for a couple of our beasts,’ he said. ‘I’ll go as far as the end of the settlement and then come back.’

There was a whir from the fern where the dog had disappeared, and two cock pheasants whirled up and sailed across the road. Sandy’s horse quivered, then stood like a rock, and a couple of shots brought the birds to the ground,

‘What’s the matter, Geoff?’ Sandy asked quickly, as Robert moved off after the dog.

‘Matter?’

‘Anything gone wrong with the boat? It’s nearly two months since you were down the river.’

‘The boat’s all right, I think,’ Geoffrey replied. ‘I haven’t seen it since we came back from Wairangi that time. We do all our travelling on the road.’