than Ralph, bull-necked and with thick hairy forearms, but he was afraid of Ralph. You could see it in his eyes. It gave Ralph a flicker of satisfaction, he was not trying to be the most popular man in Africa. There was no prize for that. 'We didn't expect you, not until the end of the month.' 'I know. What's your mileage?' 'We have had a few snags, sir.' 'By God, man, do I have to kick it out of you?'
'Since the first of the month,' the engineer hesitated. He had proved to himself that there was no profit in lying to Ralph Ballantyne.
'Sixteen miles.' Ralph crossed to the survey map, and checked the figures. He had noted the beacon numbers of the railhead as he passed.
'Fifteen miles and six hundred yards, isn't sixteen,' he said.
'No, sir. Almost sixteen.' 'Are you satisfied with that?' 'No, sir.' 'Nor am I.' That was enough, Ralph told himself, any more would decrease the man's usefulness, and there wasn't a better man to replace him, not between here and the Orange river.
'Did you get my telegraph from Bulawayo?' 'No, Mr. Ballantyne. The lines have been down for days.' 'The line to Kimberley?' 'That is open.' 'Good. Get your operator to send this.' Ralph stooped over the message pad and scribbled quickly.
'For Aaron Fagan, attorney at law, De Beers Street, Kimberley.
Arriving early tomorrow 6th. Arrange urgent noon meeting with Rough Rider from Rholand.' Rough Rider was the private code for Roelof Zeederberg, Ralph's chief rival in the transport business.
Zeederberg's express coaches plied from Delagoa to Algoa Bay, from the gold fields of Pilgrims Rest to Witwatersrand, to the railhead at Kimberley.
While his telegraph operator tapped it out on the brass and teak instrument, Ralph turned back to his engineer.
'All right, what were the snags that held you up, and how can we beat them?' 'The worst is the bottle-neck at Kimberley shunting, yards.'
For an hour they worked, and at the end of it the locomotive whistled outside the shack. They went out, still arguing and planning.
Ralph tossed his saddlebag and blanket-roll onto the first flat car, and held the train for ten minutes longer while he arranged the final details with his engineer.
'From now on you will get your hardware faster than you can nail it down,' he promised grimly, as he vaulted up onto the bogie and waved at the driver.
The whistle sent a jet of steam spurting into the dry desert air, and the locomotive wheels spun and then gripped with a jolt, and the long string of empty cars began to trundle southwards, building up speed rapidly. Ralph found a corner of the truck out of the wind, and rolled into his blanket. Eight days' ride from the Lupani river to the railhead. It had to be some sort of record.
'But there is no prize for that either,' he grinned wearily, pulled his hat over his eyes and settled down to listen to the song of the wheels over the ties. 'We have got to hurry. We have got to hurry.' And then just before he fell asleep, the song changed. 'The cattle are dying. The cattle are dead,' sang the wheels over and over again, but even that could not keep him awake one second longer.
They pulled into the shunting-yards at Kimberley, sixteen hours later. It was just past four in the morning.
Ralph jumped down off the bogie as the locomotive slowed for the points, and with his saddlebags slung over his shoulder, trudged up De Beers Street. There was a light on in the telegraph office and Ralph beat on the wooden hatch until the night operator peered out at him like a barn owl from its nest.
'I want to send an urgent telegraph to Bulawayo.' 'Sorry, mate, the line is down.' 'When will it be open again?' 'God knows, it's been out for six days already.' Ralph was still grinning as he swaggered into the lobby of Diamond Lil's Hotel.
The night clerk was new. He did not recognize Ralph. He saw a tall lean sunburned man, whose stained and dusty clothing hung loosely on him. That wild ride had burned off all Ralph's excess flesh. He had not shaved since leaving the Lupani, and his boots were scuffed almost through the uppers by the brushing of the thorn scrub as he had ridden through it. Locomotive soot had darkened his face and reddened his eyes, and the clerk recognized a drifter when he saw one.
'I'm sorry, sir,' he said. 'The hotel is full.' 'Who is in the Blue Diamond suite? 'Ralph asked affably. 'Sir Randolph Charles,' the clerk's voice was filled with reverence.
'Get him out, 'said Ralph.
'I beg your pardon?' the clerk reared back, and his expression was frosty. Ralph reached across the desk, and took him by his watered silk cravat, and drew him closer.
'Get him out of my suite,' Ralph repeated, his lips an inch from the man's ear. 'Quickly!' It was at that moment that the day clerk came into the reception office.
'Mr. Ballantyne,' he cried with a mixture of alarm and feigned pleasure as he rushed to the rescue of his colleague. 'Your permanent suite will be ready in a minute.' Then he hissed in the night clerk's other ear. 'Clear that suite immediately, or he'll do it for you.' The Blue Diamond had one of the very few bathrooms in Kimberley with laid-on hot water. Two black servants stoked the boiler outside the window to keep steam whistling from the valve while Ralph lay chin-deep and adjusted a trickle of scalding water with his big toe on the tap.
At the same time he shaved his jaws with a straight razor, working by touch and scorning the mirror. The day clerk had supervised the removal of Ralph's steamer trunk from the box-room, and hovered over the valets as they pressed the suits and tried to improve upon the perfect shine of the boots that they unpacked from the trunk.
At five minutes before noon, Ralph, smelling of brilliantine and eau de Cologne, marched into Aaron Fagan's office. Aaron was a thin stooped man, with threadbare hair brushed straight back from a deep intellectual forehead. His nose was beaked, his mouth full and sensitive and his sloe-eyes aware and bright.
He played a cruel game of kalabriasz, giving no quarter, and yet there was a compassionate streak in his nature which Ralph valued as highly as any of his other qualities. If he had known what Ralph intended at this moment, he would have tried to dissuade him, but after having put the case against it, he would then have gone ahead and drawn up a contract as mercilessly as he would have elevated his jasz and men el for a winning coup at kalabriasz.
Ralph didn't have time to argue ethics with him now, so as they embraced and patted each other's shoulder blades affectionately, he forestalled the question by asking. 'Are they here?' and then pushing open the door to the inner office.
Roelof and Doel Zeederberg did not rise as he entered and neither they nor Ralph made any attempt to shake hands. They had clashed viciously, but indecisively, on too many occasions.
'So, Ballantyne, you want to waste our time again?' Roelof's accent was still thick with his Swedish ancestry, but under his pale ginger brows, his eyes were quick with interest.
'My dear Roelof,' Ralph protested, 'I would never do that. All I want is that we should resolve this tariff on the new Matabeleland route before we put each other out of business.' 'JaP Doel agreed sarcastically. 'That's a good thought, like my mother-in-law should love me.' 'We are willing to listen, for a few minutes anyway.' Roelofs tone was casual, but his interest was quicker still. 'One of us should buy the other out, and set his own tarifts,' said Ralph blandly, and the brothers glanced at each other involuntarily. Roelof made a fuss of relighting his dead cigar to hide his astonishment.
'You are asking yourselves why?' Ralph said. 'You want to know why Ralph Ballantyne wants to sell out.' Neither brother denied it, they waited quietly as vultures in the treetops.
'The truth is this, I have over-extended myself in Matabeleland.
The Harkness Mine-' The lines of tension around Roelofs mouth smoothed out. They had heard about the mine, the talk on the Johannesburg stock exchange floor was that it would cost 50,000 pounds to bring it into production.
'I am behind on the railway contract for Mr. Rhodes,' Ralph went on quietly and seriously. 'I need cash.' 'You had a figure in mind?'
Roelof asked, and took a puff on the cigar.
Ralph nodded and gave it to him, and Roelof choked on his smoke.
His brother pounded him between his shoulders until he regained his breath, and then Roelof chuckled and shook his head.
'Ja,'he said. 'That's good. That's a very good one.' 'It looks as though you were right,' Ralph agreed. 'I am wasting your time.' He pushed back his chair and stood up.
'Sit down.' Roelof stopped laughing. 'Sit down and let's talk,' he said briskly, and by the following noon Aaron Fagan had drawn up the contract in his own hand.
It was very simple. The purchasers accepted the attached statement of assets as complete and correct. They agreed to take over all existing contracts of carriage and the responsibility of all goods at present in transit. The seller gave no guarantees. The purchase price was in cash, no share transfers were involved, and the effective date was that of the signatures walk out, walk in.
They signed in the presence of their attorneys, and then both parties, accompanied by their legal counsellors, crossed the street to the main branch of the Dominion Colonial and Overseas Bank where the cheque of Zeederberg Bros was presented and duly honoured
