The Chinese skinner was sitting on a log, rubbing a huge butcher's
knife on a sharpening stone. Away up the plain the horses, about
thirty or forty in number, were slowly trooping into camp, hunted
by a couple of blackfellows, naked except for little grass armlets
worn above the elbow, and sticks stuck through their noses. When
the horses reached the camp they formed a squadron under the shade
of some trees, and pushed and shoved and circled about, trying to
keep the flies off themselves and each other.
Hugh walked over to Tommy Prince at his rifle-oiling, and watched
him for a while. That worthy, who was evidently a true sportsman
at heart, was liberally baptising with Rangoon oil an old and much
rusted Martini carbine, whose ejector refused to work. Every now
and then, when he thought he had got it ship-shape, Tommy would
put in a fresh cartridge, hold the carbine tightly to his shoulder,
shut his eyes, and fire it into space. The rusty old weapon kicked
frightfully, after each discharge the ejector jammed, and Tommy
ruefully poked the exploded cartridge out with a rod and poured on
more oil.
"Blast the carbine!" said Tommy. "It kicks upwards like; it's
kicking my nose all skewwhiff."
"Don't put it to your shoulder, you fool," said one of the shooters;
"it'll kick your head off.
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