I don't know what you can do now.

Why, Val, I expect you'll soon prove yourself to be a better soldier than any of us, for our drill is precious rough; but we are improving every day." "You have been farther up than this ?" I said, to change the conversation, which was making me, a lad accustomed only to our solitary farm-life, feel awkward and uncomfortable, with a suspicion that my companion was bantering me.
"No," he replied; "only about a hundred yards farther than where we met this morning." "Then you'll find the riding worse than you expect." "Well, it will be practice," he said.

"But I say, how that nigger of yours scuffles along! He's leaving us quite behind." "He is sure-footed and accustomed to the rocks," I said as I watched Joeboy, who was getting higher and higher up the precipice to our left, as well as higher up the pass.

"He wants to get up to where he can look over the Boers' position." "He had better mind," said Denham.

"You ought to have taken away those bits of vanity before he went into action." "What bits of vanity ?" I said.
"Those white ostrich-feathers.