I'll give you--let me see--oh, what does the money matter when one has plenty?
I'll give you a hundred English pounds for that mare; and don't you think me a fool.

I tell you I mean to get it back, and more, at the great races down in the south.
Now what do you say ?" "I say that the mare is not for sale, Heer Pereira." Then a thought struck me, or an inspiration, and, as has always been my fashion, I acted on it at once.

"But," I added slowly, "if you like, when I am a bit stronger I'll shoot you a match for her, you staking your hundred pounds and I staking the mare." Pereira burst out laughing.
"Here, friends," he called to some of the Boers who were strolling up to the house for their morning coffee.

"This little Englishman wants to shoot a match with me, staking that fine mare of his against a hundred pounds British; against me, Hernando Pereira, who have won every prize at shooting that ever I entered for.

No, no, friend Allan, I am not a thief, I will not rob you of your mare." Now among those Boers chanced to be the celebrated Heer Pieter Retief, a very fine man of high character, then in the prime of life, and of Huguenot descent like Heer Marais.