Bertram Mitford (continued 2)

“What’s the row, eh? Greenoak, I thought you’d shot me.”

“The row? Look there,” was the answer grimly given.

Dick screwed himself round. There lay the iron trap—empty, and further on, the spotted corpse of the great leopard. He himself was between the two.

“Lucky Greenoak’s got the eye of a hawk, and the quickness of a flash of lightning,” said his host, grimly. “I know I could never have got in that shot in time. How would you be feeling now if the brute’s spring hadn’t been cut short? He was stone dead in the middle of it when he knocked you over.”

“Did he knock me over then?” said Dick, rising to his feet.

“Rather,” answered Greenoak. “Even then the muscular contraction of his claws might have given you fits; but he made a bad shot—only hit you with his shoulder and knocked you flying.”

They gathered round the splendid beast, grim and terrible still in death. The heavy Express bullet had gone clean through the heart.

“By George, but I’ve had a narrow squeak for it!” ejaculated Dick. Then his glance fell upon Hazel Brandon, who was standing a little in the background, white and shuddering, and his heart smote him with self-wrath and contempt. He had thought to show off, and had only succeeded in frightening her, and making a most egregious ass of himself.

“Oh, Miss Brandon, I’m so sorry I’ve given you a scare!” he exclaimed penitently. “But it’s all right now. Come and look at the tiger—such a splendid beast.”

“Well, you did give me rather a fright,” she said, with a faint smile, while the colour returned to her cheeks. “But—what a splendid shot!”

“Wasn’t it!” answered Dick, whole-heartedly, at the same time not quite able to help wishing that the positions had been exactly reversed. He was conscious, too, that this was the third time Harley Greenoak had stepped between himself and sure and certain death. The latter was thinking the same thing, and was more than ever convinced that Sir Anson had spoken the bare truth in saying that he would find his charge no sinecure. The while he had drawn his sheath knife and was tucking up his shirt-sleeves.

“We’ll just strip off this uncommonly fine skin, Kleinbooi and I,” he announced imperturbably. “But as it isn’t a pleasant process to watch, I’d suggest that Miss Brandon should wait for us where we left the horses.”

“That’s a good idea,” said Dick, briskly. “Come along, Miss Brandon. We’ll wait there.”

Having thrown off her temporary scare, Hazel turned to her uncle and rated him soundly for having the trap set at all It was abominably cruel, she declared, unsportsmanlike too. The old man chuckled.

“Ho—ho! Not bad that, for a girl who’s been raised on a farm,” he said. “Don’t they ever set traps down at Windhoek then, or has your father got too many sheep and calves? I can tell you this beast has been taking toll of mine finely.”

“Well, why don’t you hunt him then, in fair and sportsmanlike fashion,” retorted the girl, “instead of setting an abominably cruel thing like that?”

“Hunt him? Ho—ho! Look there.”

He pointed to the upper end of the hollow, which was shut in by a wall of terraced rock and cliff. But many a dark hole and crack on the face of this showed that the towering rampart was honeycombed by caves and labyrinthine galleries.

“How are you going to get him out of these?” went on old Hesketh. “Why, all the dogs in the world wouldn’t get him out. He’d only have to skip from one hole to another. Eh, Greenoak?” The latter nodded.

“Well, it’s abominably cruel all the same,” repeated Hazel as she turned away. “Aren’t I right, Mr Selmes?”

“A trap that doesn’t kill outright always is cruel,” answered the diplomatic Dick, whose last wish in the world was to disagree with her. “I know I’ve often thought it hard luck on the rabbits at home when they got into one—poor little beggars.”

“Do you know,” she went on, jumping from one subject to another, “I can’t tell you how glad I am to have had the opportunity of meeting Mr Greenoak. What a splendid man he is! Isn’t he?”

“Rather. He’s a thundering good old chap.”

Hazel lifted an eyebrow.

“Old! But you surely don’t call him old. Why, he’s just in his prime. Oh, I see, you mean it as a term of comradeship,” she added.

“Er—yes. That was it,” agreed Dick, upon whose mind a very unwelcome qualm was beginning to force itself.

“So strong and cool and clearheaded,” she went on, “and such nerve. Why, he’s everything a man should be. Don’t you agree with me?”

“Most decidedly.”

“Ah, I like to hear a man speak well of another.”

“Why? Isn’t it usual?” said Dick.

“No. At least not within my experience. Almost invariably if I boom one man to another that other will either agree half-heartedly, or find something disparaging to say.”

“Well, even if I felt that way inclined, I should be an absolutely unspeakable cur were I to say anything of the sort about Greenoak, considering that this is the third time he has saved my life,” answered Dick.

“Is it? Oh, do tell me about the others,” cried Hazel, eagerly.

“I can’t tell you about the other because it comes into the mystery of this place, as to which, as you know, we are sworn to secrecy. But I told you the first. It was the night I shot the big buffalo.”

Looking down into the bright, sparkling eager face, Dick Selmes was conscious of that unwelcome misgiving taking even more definite hold of his mind. The eagerness with which she hung upon his words was not because they were his words. Greenoak of all people! Why, he must be old enough to be her father, concluded Dick, in his inexperience rather consoling himself with the thought.

“Yes, you told me that,” rejoined Hazel. “But you are only one of many. Harley Greenoak has the reputation of having saved countless lives and got no end of people out of difficulties of one kind or another, yet he never talks about it, they say. I can’t tell you how proud I am to have made his acquaintance.”

“Shall I tell him so, for here he comes?” said Dick, mischievously. “Now, or when you’re not there?”

“If you do I’ll never speak to you again. And yet I don’t know that I’d greatly care if you did.”

They had been waiting as directed, where the horses had been left, and now the other two were coming up.

“You’ve made a quick job of that, Greenoak,” said Dick.

“Yes. But I only took charge of the more difficult part, Kleinbooi’ll do the rest. It’s a good skin, Dick, and ought to look well in your hall, or wherever you stick up such things.”

Dick stared.

“But it’s yours,” he cried. “Why, it was your shot—and a jolly fine shot too. Don’t know where I’d have been but for it.”

“Oh, that’s all right. I’ve nowhere to keep trophies and you have. You’ll be able to hang it under the buffalo head.” And the speaker swung himself into the saddle, and resumed his conversation with old Hesketh.

“There!” exclaimed Hazel. “Isn’t that like him? And you hardly said thank you.”

“Greenoak doesn’t like much thanking. It seems to hurt him; sets him on the shrink, don’t you know.”

“I can quite believe that,” rejoined Hazel. “Now—you can help me to mount.”

The while, the subject under discussion was some way ahead, with Hesketh. They were in fact passing the scene of that other tragedy.

“Not much trace of that affair,” Hesketh was saying as he glanced keenly around. “Tell you what, though, I wonder yon tiger didn’t put an end to the ‘mystery’ long ago, and save us the trouble. Ho-ho!”

“I don’t,” rejoined Greenoak, quietly. “It’d have to be a very smart tiger indeed to get the blind side of a veteran Bushman. The ‘mystery’ was a darn sight more likely to scoff the tiger than the tiger was to scoff the ‘mystery.’”

Chapter Nine.

A Way Out.

Postal delivery at Haakdoornfontein was, as an institution, non-existent; and when old Hesketh desired communication with or from the outside world he obtained it by dispatching a boy to the nearest field-cornet’s, some sixteen or seventeen miles away. This, for obvious reasons, he did not do very often.

Harley Greenoak was seated on a stone, on the shaded side of the shearing-house, thinking. The shade was almost too cool, for there was a forecasting touch of crisp winter in the clear atmosphere and vivid blue of the cloudless sky. He could see the long, gaunt figure of his host, pottering about down at the lands, and every now and then from the kitchen at the back of the house, there came to his ears the clear tones of Hazel’s voice endeavouring to convey instruction into the opaque mind of the yellow-skinned cook. The sounds in no wise interrupted his train of thought; rather they fitted in with it, for in it the utterer of them bore her share.

From his pocket he drew forth a letter. This he spread out open before him, and began to study, not for the first time. It had arrived the previous evening, and was several days overdue, owing to Hesketh’s erratic postal provisions as set forward above. The writing was not easily decipherable, and the contents, well—they were commonplace on the surface, but beneath, to one well acquainted with the writer, meaning enough could be read. Now Harley Greenoak and the Commandant of the Frontier Armed and Mounted Police were very old friends indeed.

There was restlessness on and beyond the border. The Transkeian tribes needed watching, and some careful handling, and the Police might have work cut out for them. And, by-the-by, where was Greenoak now, and what was he doing; because if nothing in particular, added the writer, why shouldn’t he come up to the border and stay with him a bit, and have some talks over old times?

Such was the gist of the letter, but its recipient read deeper than that. Few men understood natives and their ways more thoroughly than himself, few men were as well known to and as thoroughly trusted by them, and none better. He foresaw a possibility of usefulness, of great usefulness; and when such was the case, it must be a very grave impediment indeed that Harley Greenoak would allow to stand in his way.

Hazel Brandon had not exaggerated in her estimate of his character; and time after time his natural gifts had found for him the opportunity of being of service to his friends—often to the saving of life—and that without hope or thought of reward. And here stood forth another such opportunity; but—how would it fit in with the charge he had undertaken? As it happened it would so fit in.

Every day of late he had been growing more anxious; every day he had seen reason for desiring to get Dick Selmes away from Haakdoornfontein. Every day seemed to draw the two young people together more and more. This, under other circumstances would have been nothing but satisfactory, but—what of his own responsibility towards the father of his charge? If the affair was more than skin deep, if it had reached a serious stage on both sides, why they could both very well afford to wait; Dick until he had consulted his father, and so until his—Greenoak’s—charge was at an end. Then he could return, on his own responsibility, and if he succeeded in winning this girl, why in the thinker’s estimation he would be very lucky, as we have said. That would be the only straight and satisfactory solution of the difficulty, decided Greenoak.

And towards such solution the Commandant’s letter seemed now to open a way. If he read Dick’s character aright, the prospect of a certain amount of adventure would irresistibly appeal. They would respond to the invitation and join his old friend; and he would show his charge some of the phases of border life, as in any case he had intended eventually to do.

“Well, Mr Greenoak, and have you decided the knotty point yet? It must be a very knotty one.” And the speaker’s winsome face, framed within an ample and snowy kapje, sparkled with sheer light-heartedness.

“That’s just what I believe I have done,” he answered, looking up at her. He had of course been aware of her approach, but he was one of those who can concentrate their powers of thought independently of external distractions.

“It must have been an extremely knotty one,” she went on, her glance resting on the sheet still grasped in the brown muscular hand, “because for nearly an hour you might as well have been a statue.”

“Does a statue fill and light a pipe two or three times an hour, Miss Brandon?” he asked drily.

“You’ve got me there,” she laughed. “But you were so absorbed that you don’t seem to have noticed that the shade has gone off this side of the shed long ago. Why, the sun’s coming down full upon you.”

“Is it? Why, so it is,” he said, rising. “I suppose I didn’t notice it because I’m so used to it. Lovely morning though.”

“Isn’t it? Well, I want you to do me a favour, Mr Greenoak. Will you?”

“Certainly. I shall be delighted.”

“But you don’t know what it is yet.”

“I know that you would not ask me, or anybody, to do what is absurd or impossible.”

“Thanks, that’s quite pretty, really it is. I thought you up-country men never went in for making compliments.”

“Mayn’t we tell the truth? That is only straightforwardness, you know.”

“There is another compliment,” laughed the girl. “Why, Mr Selmes himself could hardly go on piling them up like that.”

“Ah, he’s young. They come more naturally from him, like the difference between the roll of a well-greased waggon wheel and that of a creaking one,” rejoined Greenoak, with a good-natured smile.

“Now that’s a delightfully quaint and characteristic simile,” laughed the girl. “I must really store it in mind for future use.”

“Is it worth it? But aren’t we getting a bit off the road? What is this ‘favour’?”

“I want you to take me for a walk, if you have nothing better to do—or think about,” she added mischievously.

“If I were to say ‘How could I have?’ you would tax me with making compliments again, I suppose. But wouldn’t you rather ride?”

“No. Sandy’s a bit lame, and Bles is away down the kloof, and by the time he was got up I should have lost all inclination to do either. And there’s no other horse on the place that’ll stand a skirt. We’ll take the path by Goba’s vee-kraal to Bromvogel Nek. There’s a lovely view from there, and this is just the day to sit and enjoy it.”

“When will you be ready?”

“I’m ready now if you are. Are you? Well then, come along.”

Hazel chatted briskly as they took their way along the winding and somewhat stony bush-path, but her companion said little. He preferred to hear her talk. There was that in the light-hearted gaiety of this bright, sweet-natured child that appealed powerfully to the strong, lonely, self-contained man, that almost made him sigh for his past youth. He liked to hear her talk, and simply talk. That in itself was a pleasure to him. At the same time he was wondering with what object she had persuaded him to accompany her; the last thing in the world that would have occurred to Harley Greenoak being that it was simply for the pleasure of his own company. He supposed she wanted to talk about Dick Selmes, to “draw” him perhaps, as to his charge’s general character. Well, if that were so, Dick should have a good one. And, as though to fit in with the idea, at that moment, from the further side of the great crater-like hollow that constituted the bulk of Hesketh’s farm, there rolled forth a distant and double report. Both stopped to gaze in the direction of the sound.

“Wonder if Dick’s getting any luck,” said Greenoak. “It’s astonishing how his keenness in that direction has thawed off of late,” he added slily.

“Yes, it has,” came the ready answer. “He’s getting quite lazy. In fact, I sent him out to hunt this morning, told him if he didn’t bring back a bush-buck ram I shouldn’t speak to him until he did. He’s much too young to be hanging about the house all day.”

With this sentiment Greenoak agreed, but—was that the speaker’s only object? Well, it would come out in time.

“For all that he’s a thorough sportsman, and as nice a young fellow as ever lived,” he said.

But Hazel did not take this opening. She plunged into other topics as they resumed their way; in none of which did the absent and venatorial Dick by any chance come in.

They passed the vee-kraal, where a wheezy and decrepit cur came forth and huskily vociferated at them—Hesketh would not allow any of his “hands” to keep an able-bodied canine on the place—and the two wives of the absent herd, profusely anointed with red clay, came out to greet them and requisition tobacco. Greenoak gave them some, as they knew he would.

“I suppose you can manage Kafirs thoroughly?” said Hazel as they walked on.

“Well, I’ve had to do it all my life.”

“Of course. What an idiotic question! Fancy my asking it you. But I don’t know whether I like them or not. I don’t see much of them.”

“No, I suppose there aren’t many round your father’s place. Mostly Hottentots?”

“Yes. But I don’t like them at all. By the way, Mr Greenoak, do you think we are going to have a Kafir war? The newspapers all seem to say we are. What is your opinion?”

“Newspapers must say something. I can’t form any opinion—as yet. I may be going up to the Transkei soon, and then I’ll be in a better position to do so.”

“Soon? Then you won’t be here much longer?”

Greenoak’s quick ear caught a shade of disappointment in the tone, almost of consternation. Then Dick’s departure would cause a blank; for of course she knew that the two were moving about together.

“You must remember we’ve been here a good while already,” he answered, “and there’s such a thing as wearing out one’s welcome. Besides, I want to show the young one some further sides of the life of the country.”

“No fear of your wearing out anything of the kind here,” rejoined Hazel, quickly. “As for the other consideration, well, that counts for something, I suppose. Here we are.”

Their uphill progress was at an end. They had reached a high, stony neck, or saddle, between two great crags. In front the slope fell abruptly away for over a thousand feet to a spread of rolling plains, sparsely bushed, and extending for miles and miles. Here and there, at long intervals, a thread of smoke, rising from homestead or native kraal, ascended, but for an immensity of distance the expanse lay, monotonous in its green-brown roll, intersected, in darker line, by the willow-fringed banks of a nearly dry river-bed. Beyond, in the clear atmosphere, seeming about twenty miles distant, though fully fifty, rose mountain piles, flat-topped, in massive walls, or breaking off into turreted cones. Northward others, more distant still, floating apparently in mid-air, owing to the mirage-like effect of distance and clearness, but everywhere a sense of grand, open, unbounded space. The far-away bark of a dog, or the disturbed crowing of cock koorhaans, came up out of the stillness. On the side from which they had ascended was the vast, crater-like hollow, the tangle of rugged and bush-grown kloofs, and slopes covered with forest trees rising to lap in wave-bound verdure the grim iron faces of red rock walls and castellated crags. It was a scene that in the balmy yet exhilarating air of the cloudless day one could sit there and revel in for ever.

“You can almost see our place from here,” said Hazel. “That kopje just shuts it off, and you wouldn’t think it was forty miles as the crow flies. This is a favourite perch of mine. I often used to climb up here.”

“Did you drag your uncle up, too?”

“Oh yes. He’d ride though. But he doesn’t care a rap for scenery. He’d light his pipe, and in about ten minutes be fast asleep.”

“I’ll light mine, but I promise you I won’t go to sleep.”

“No, don’t. You must talk to me instead. Tell me some of your experiences. You must have had so many, and such wonderful ones.”

Harley Greenoak laughed deprecatorily. This formula was so frequent wherever he went that it had become stereotyped. As a rule it annoyed him; now, however, it was hard to connect such a word with the owner of that sparkling face, of the wide, lustrous, almost admiring eyes turned upon his own.

“One can’t spin yarns to order,” he said. “If something suggests one, out it comes—or doesn’t.”

Chapter Ten.

Drift.

She made no answer, at first. They were in shade now, and she had flung off her sun-bonnet, and her glance was turned forth upon the wide veldt lying beneath, while the light breeze stirred the little escaped rings of her dark hair. No wonder he had found it difficult to get his charge away from Haakdoornfontein, thought the only spectator. The thought was quickly followed by another. Was he so unaffectedly anxious to get away from it himself? Well, why should he be? This bright, beautiful child had brought such sunshine into their daily life, why should he not enjoy his share of it simply because he was no longer young? Harley Greenoak had a strong sense of the ridiculous. Now he saw himself, rough, middle-aged, rapidly turning grey, and secretly he laughed; but it was a laugh not altogether free from wistfulness.

“What an experience yours must have been!” she went on. “I suppose you can’t even count the number of people whose lives you have saved?”

“I never tried—er—and excuse me, Miss Brandon, but—you didn’t bring me up here to make me brag, did you?”

“To make you brag?” she repeated. “That would be a feat—one that I don’t believe any one ever accomplished yet.”

“I hope not. I’m only a plain man, Miss Brandon. I don’t know that I ever had much education, but I’ve always held a theory of my own that every one is put into the world to be of some use, and I’ve always tried to act up to it.”

“Haven’t you just, and succeeded too? I suppose all South Africa knows that.”

The soft-voiced flattery, the glance that accompanied it, were calculated to stir the pulses of even so strong a man as Harley Greenoak, and this he himself realised while striving to neutralise their effect.

“When I was young,” he went on, “people used to look on me as a sort of ne’er-do-well, something not far short of a scamp, because I elected for a wandering life instead of what they called ‘settling down to something.’ Perhaps they were right, perhaps not.”

“They were idiots,” broke forth Hazel, impulsively.

“I don’t know,” went on the other, with a smile at the interruption. “Anyhow, I believe in a man taking to what he’s most fitted for, and I’ve lived to know that this is the life I’m the most fitted for. Some might call it an idle life, but if I may say so without bragging, I believe it has been of more service to other people than if I had launched out in the ‘settling down’ line of business.”

“I should think so indeed,” said the girl, her beautiful eyes aglow with sympathy and admiration. Secretly she was delighted. She had made Harley Greenoak talk—and not merely talk, but talk about himself—a thing which, if popular report spoke truly, no one had ever succeeded in doing yet.

“Once I tried farming, but it was no manner of use. The wandering instinct was in my blood, I suppose. Even transport riding—and I was pretty lucky at that while it lasted—was too slow for me. Too much sticking to the road, you see. I’ve been a little of everything, but,”—with a whimsical laugh—“I certainly never expected to turn bear-leader in my old age.”

“Uncommonly lucky for the ‘bear,’” pronounced Hazel.

“Well, the said ‘bear’ is apt to get into hot water rather easily. Otherwise he hasn’t got any vice.”

“And you are apt to get him out of hot water rather easily. Oh, I’ve heard all about it.”

“That was part of my charge. It was all in the day’s work. Over and about that, I’ve grown quite fond of the boy. He’s as taking a lad as I’ve ever known.”

Hazel agreed, and promptly turned the subject from the belauded Dick Selmes to other matters. The while, she was thinking; and if her companion could have read her thoughts—and even his penetration couldn’t do that—why, it is possible that he would have run up against the biggest surprise he had ever experienced in his life.

Even so Harley Greenoak was conscious of some modicum of surprise; and that was evoked by the way in which his companion was making him talk—drawing him, so to say—and, somehow, the experience was a pleasant one. Not until afterwards did it occur to him that he had come near being thrown a trifle off his balance by the soft insidious flatteries of this beautiful girl, reclining there in an attitude of easy grace. The warm, sunlit air, the height of space, looking down, as it were, upon two worlds, the free openness of it all was Greenoak’s natural heritage, and under no other surroundings could he be so thoroughly at his best. So she led him on to talk, and he had a dry, quaint, philosophical way of handling things which amused and appealed to her immensely. Suddenly the report of a gun, just beneath, together with the cry of dogs hot-foot on a quarry.

“That’s Dick. He’s worked round to this side of the farm,” said Greenoak. “Shall we go down and see what he’s been doing, for it strikes me we’ve been sitting here rather a long time?”

“Oh, you have found it long, then?” with mock offended air, then colouring slightly as she realised what an utter banality she had fired off for the benefit of a man of Harley Greenoak’s calibre.

“No, I haven’t,” he answered quite evenly. “I’ve enjoyed the lounge and the talk very much.” And then Hazel felt more disgusted with herself still.

“Let’s go back to the house,” she said. “I believe it’s getting rather hot.”

She chatted as they wound their way downwards along the bush-path, but not so brightly as when they had come up it. Somewhat wonderingly, Greenoak noted that she displayed no interest in the absent Dick. The latter arrived not long after themselves.

“There you are, Miss Brandon, I’ve redeemed my pledge,” he cried. “Got a whacking big bush-buck ram. Do come and look at it.”

“Got him just under Bromvogel Nek—eh, Dick?” said Greenoak.

“Yes. But—how did you know?”

“Heard your shot, and the dogs on to something wounded. We took a walk up there, Miss Brandon and I.”

“Oh—” And Dick Selmes stopped short, and then thought what an ass he was making of himself. So that was why Hazel had been so anxious for him to go out and hunt! Old Greenoak was coming out of his shell—coming out with a vengeance.

As they went outside Kleinbooi, the Fingo, was in the act of offloading the quarry. It certainly was a fine ram, but Dick noticed with inward disgust and heart-searching that Hazel seemed to show but little interest in it, or in his own doings. And by this time it had become of very great importance to him that she should feel interest in his own doings.

“What would you say to moving on, Dick?” said Greenoak that afternoon. “We’ve been here a good while, you know.”

The other’s face fell.

“Yes, I’m afraid we have,” he said. “But where shall we go next?”

Greenoak gave him some inkling of the bearing of the Commandant’s letter, and the idea caught on, but with half the alacrity wherewith it would have been received had a certain entrancing young person not been a fellow-guest at Haakdoornfontein.

“When shall we start?” asked Dick, somewhat ruefully.

“How about to-morrow?”

“Couldn’t we make it the day after? Come now, Greenoak. A day more or less can’t make any difference.”

“Well, no more it can—at this stage,” was the enigmatical answer. As a matter of fact, in the speaker’s inner mind it was an ambiguous one, “We’ll break away the day after.”

“Going on, are you?” said old Hesketh, when the announcement was made to him. “Well, I’m sorry. But I suppose our young buffalo hunter’s spoiling to get on to bigger game. Where are you trekking for now, Greenoak?”

“The Transkei.”

“Ho-ho-ho! You may get on to bigger game there,” chuckled the old man, significantly. “Yes, bigger game than ever Slaang Kloof can find you. Think there’s anything in these reports, Greenoak?”

“Never can tell. I happen to know there is a simmer stirring all the border tribes. It’ll depend on how the thing’s handled.”

“If Mr Greenoak has the handling of it, things won’t go very wrong, Uncle Eph,” interrupted Hazel.

“Now, Miss Brandon, you are either chaffing me or giving me credit for powers of magic which I don’t possess,” protested the object of this exordium.

“I’m doing neither,” replied the girl, confidently.

Dick Selmes restrained an impulse to look quickly up—they were at table. Of late Hazel seemed never tired of booming Greenoak, he told himself, and now all her talks with himself came up. These, somehow, always led round to Greenoak.

He looked with renewed interest at his guide and mentor. The latter was a splendid fellow, as the girl had more than once declared, but—elderly; easily old enough to be her father. Now he, Dick Selmes, had been coming to the conclusion that life apart from Hazel Brandon was going to be a very poor affair.

The propinquity had done it—that, and the bright, sweet charms of the girl herself. He had been realising that the time must come when they would have to part, and now that it had come, why, he would put his fortune to the test. Surely it could have but one issue. They had been so much together, long rides, long rambles, or wandering about among the bush solitudes, and they had always agreed so well. She had always shown such pleasure in his company, surely she would accept it for life. And then came the discomforting thought that just of late they had not been so much together. That morning, for instance, she had insisted on him going away from her for half the day, while she rambled off with Greenoak. What did it mean? Poor Dick began to feel very sore, and partly so with Greenoak. Well, he would put matters to the test, and that at once.

But this was not so easy, for the simple reason that he found no opportunity, and did not know how to make one. Hazel was as bright and cordial as ever, but affected to be busy, and there was no means of getting her alone to himself. All the good understanding between them seemed to have evaporated. She was avoiding him—deliberately avoiding him—there could be no doubt about that.

In his soreness and disgust he seized his gun, and started off on foot. He had not gone far when he heard Greenoak’s voice behind him.

“Going alone, Dick? Better not. You seem hipped; man, and I don’t think your own company’s good for you.”

Dick’s first impulse was to make an ungracious reply, but he conquered it.

“Yes, it is,” he said. “Every one’s tired of me now, so I didn’t want to bore anybody.”

“Well, we’ll go and lay up at the draai for anything that’s moving. But it’s early yet.”

It was afternoon, and their departure was fixed for the following morning. Dick felt desperate.

“Hang it, Greenoak,” he burst forth at last. “You don’t know how I hate leaving this place. Had such jolly times here.”

“How you hate leaving somebody on this place, was what you should have said. Eh, Dick?”

“Well, yes, if you put it quite so plainly. The worst of it is, I can’t get an opportunity of speaking to her alone. Couldn’t you manage to make one for me, Greenoak? You can do about everything,”—eagerly.

“Not that. Even if I could I wouldn’t. My dear Dick, I’m responsible to your father; and I won’t help in that sort of thing. You’ve fallen a victim to propinquity, as many another has done before you, and the best thing for you is to go away—as we are going—and see how this—er—fancy stands the test of time and different surroundings. It is evident that the other party to the difficulty is not in a hurry to clench matters, which shows her sterling sense. No. Try my prescription.”

This and other wise doctrines did Greenoak preach, and at last his charge became in some measure reconciled to the plan. Anyway, he was not going to make an ass of himself, he declared.

Chapter Eleven.

Farewell.

A man who is “good all round,” as the saying goes, in weighty matters, is rarely a fool in dealing with those of minor importance, although he is sometimes. In which connection the advice we just heard Greenoak administer to his charge showed sound judgment and a knowledge of human nature.

“The other party to the difficulty is in no hurry to clinch matters,” he had said, and it was no more than the truth. Hazel Brandon was gifted with rather more common-sense than most girls of her age. She and her young companion had been drawn very much together during their sojourn at this isolated farm, and she had grown very fond of him; but what she doubted was whether she had grown fond of him enough. She knew, of course, how matters were trending, and that she had only to hold up a finger. Yet she kept that finger persistently down.

She was in no hurry to engage herself to anybody. There was plenty of time. She was quite young and perfectly happy at home, as incidentally and periodically she would remind a remote cousin who pestered her. But she owned to herself that he was not in the same street with Dick Selmes. Yet about the latter there was something wanting, something which, much as she liked him, somewhat failed to satisfy her. Light-heartedness is a valuable gift, but he was too light-hearted; too boyish. He would be the better for some trying experience, she decided, something that would mould his character. Even were she to fall in with the wishes he was seeking opportunity to utter, how could she feel entirely assured that he knew his own mind? She could not so feel, therefore she cut the knot of the difficulty by taking care to give him no such opportunity.

Then again, what about his belongings—his father, for instance? She knew that his position and prospects were unimpeachable; and would it not be said that she had laid herself out to entrap him? There was a decided hardening of the proud little mouth at the thought. She would have no secret or provisional understanding. If he knew his own mind, he knew where to find her when his travels should be over; in her own home to wit. This would cut both ways, for while suspecting him of not quite knowing his own mind in the matter, Hazel candidly admitted to herself that at this stage she did not know hers. She owned she would miss him dreadfully when he left; but—the point was, would she miss him when she got home again?

That last evening could hardly be pronounced a successful experiment in cheerfulness. Not to put too fine a point on it it was unequivocally dismal. Harley Greenoak was, if anything, more sparing of speech than usual, and old Hesketh was tired. Hazel’s heroic attempts at brightening up the situation fell flat. Dick Selmes was gloomy, and inclined to import a note of sentiment into his remarks; and then—his last cable was cut away. He had clung to a hope that he might get Hazel to himself, if only for a few minutes, after the others had retired; but no—she forestalled them, bidding good-night quite unnecessarily early, and before any one else had shown signs of moving.

“Got everything ready, Dick?” said Greenoak, coming into his room. “We start just after sun-up, you know.”

“I wish we started now,” was the answer, and the speaker savagely kicked his boots across the floor, to the grave peril of a big tarantula prowling along in the shadow against the dilapidated wainscotting. “I hope there’ll be a thundering big war when we get up there. I could take on a good deal of excitement just now.”

The other laughed pleasantly. “I know you could, Dick, but let’s hope we’ll get some excitement without the war. Well now, pull yourself together. There are plenty of good times sticking out in front of you. Good-night.”

Dick, left alone, thought what an easy thing it was to give advice. How could an old chap like Greenoak realise what he was going through? he said to himself—losing sight of the possibility of his friend having at one time gone through an exactly similar experience. Ah, well—there was a prospect of excitement ahead—that was one comfort.

Going to the window, he threw up the sash, and the night air, still and cool, penetrated the room. The sky was clear and the stars shone in myriad frosty twinkle, and up from the shaggy forest strips which lined the deep kloofs abutting on the great hollow, came the multifold voices of the creatures of the night, winged or four-footed. Under a cold moon the great crags were visible, and as he gazed forth upon the still vastness of Nature, it seemed to Dick Selmes that every spot on the place carried with it some association. The night reminded him of that similar one down in the Addo, when he had gone forth single-handed to seek adventure—and had found it too, with a vengeance. Since then what an experience had come his way, changing his life completely. Then, chilled by the night air, he closed down the window and turned in.

It seemed hardly five minutes before the entrance of Greenoak told him that it was time to turn out. There was a sharp, raw nip in the air, although the sky was without a cloud, for the sun was not yet up, and Dick proceeded to dress, hurriedly and shiveringly. He felt altogether depressed. He wished he had never heard of South Africa, and then, even upon his youthful understanding, was borne in the certainty that what had overtaken him here would have overtaken him somewhere else.

As he entered the living-room Hazel was there dispensing early coffee. If only he had the opportunity of being alone with her even now, he thought, but he had not. Already the cart stood inspanned in front of the stoep.

“Well, young buffalo hunter,” said old Hesketh, “I shall be sorry to lose you, and if ever you’re round this way don’t forget to look in and help to liven an old man up. You’re always welcome for as long as you like to stay. But it’s slow work for a young ’un, to be sure.”

“That it isn’t, Mr Hesketh,” rejoined Dick, heartily, not a little touched by the kindness and real warmth of his host’s words. “I’ve had a rattling good time here, and enjoyed it as well as I’ve ever enjoyed anything”—with a meaning glance in the direction of Hazel, to which she, however, utterly failed to respond. But perhaps she made up for it in the frank warmth of her farewell.

“Do come and see us at our place, Mr Selmes, when you have done your travels,” she said. “My father will be delighted, I can answer for that, though we can’t give you quite such good sport as you’ve been having here. Still, you will have a hearty welcome.”

Dick mumbled something as he pressed the little hand, longer perhaps than he need have done—and then he had a confused consciousness of climbing to his seat, and in less than no time the homestead at Haakdoornfontein was out of sight.

“Jolly old place,” he said regretfully, as he looked back. “Tell you what, Greenoak. I quite hate leaving it.”

“I dare say,” remarked Greenoak, drily. He was thinking at that moment that his charge was becoming something of a burden. The said charge was thinking of something else, and that “something” evidently something all-engrossing—so much so, that for upwards of an hour he did not utter a word—a very unusual thing indeed for Dick Selmes.

But he was young, and his spirits soon reasserted themselves. Bowling along in the glorious air and sunshine, as each fresh stage passed took them over—to him—new and varying scenes, his temporary gloom was soon dispelled. Harley Greenoak, too, was the ideal kind and tactful companion, and by the time they sighted the beautiful mountain range, the forest-clad rampart beyond which lay Kafirland—Kafirland with its delightful potentialities of stirring adventure—Dick had quite recovered his old light-heartedness. Yet this was in a measure sobered, tempered, by the recollections of one whom he had left behind him.

“Well, girlie,” said old Hesketh to his niece, after the departure of the guests. “We shall miss the young ’un—eh? You’ll be dull now with only an old fogey to put up with.”

“Have I been dull before, Uncle Eph?” answered the girl, slipping her arm through his. “And I think this isn’t the first time I’ve had ‘only an old fogey to put up with.’”

“No, it isn’t. Well, young to young—that’s the rôle of Nature, and he is a fine young fellow that. I never saw a young ’un I took to so much.”

And old Ephraim Hesketh suddenly found himself being very much kissed.

Chapter Twelve.

Of a Fight.

“Rather different sort of country this—eh, Dick?”

“Yes. But the worst of it is there’s nothing to shoot.”

“There never is where there are Kafir locations,” rejoined Harley Greenoak.

On either side of the road lay spread the green, undulating plains of British Kaffraria, open, or dotted here and there with mimosa. The sky, dazzling in its vivid blue, was without a cloud, and the air of the winter midday warm and yet exhilarating. The Cape cart had just left behind the steep slope of the Gonubi Hill, and was bowling along the Kei Road, facing eastward.

“Think the Kafirs really do mean to kick up a row, Greenoak,” said Dick, as three ochre-smeared samples of that race strode by, favouring those of the dominant one with a defiant stare.

“I’m dead sure of it. You see, they haven’t had a fight for nearly a quarter of a century, and now they’re spoiling for one. I didn’t care to say so while we were down in the Colony though, for fear of setting up a scare. It’s simply the Donnybrook spirit. This squabble about the Fingoes is a mere pretext.”

“Well, I’m jolly glad,” rejoined Dick Selmes. “It would have been a proper sell to have come all this way and there to be no war after all.”

“Sell? I’m hoping that same sell may be ours.”

“What? You’re hoping there’ll be no war?”

“Certainly. Think what a row I should get into with your dad for countenancing your taking part in it, Dick.”

“Oh, don’t you bother about that, old chap,” was the breezy rejoinder. “Didn’t the dad leave me here to see all there was to be seen, and if there was a jolly war and I didn’t see something of it, why, I shouldn’t be seeing all there was to be seen? Besides, I’ve seen nothing of the Kafirs yet.”

“You’ll see enough and to spare of them directly. Meanwhile you’re about to begin, for here we are at Draaibosch.”

Our friend Dick had about recovered his normal spirits, the enjoyment of travel, the ever-changing novelty of it at every turn, and the prospect of excitement ahead had done that for him. But he could not banish the recollection of that bright, sweet personality from his mind, nor had he any wish to. When he had done with his experiences he would find out Hazel Brandon in her own home, and would speak out boldly and in no uncertain manner. Meanwhile, advised by common-sense and Harley Greenoak, he decided to make the best of things at present, and to let the future take care of itself.

As they topped a rise the wayside inn and canteen came into view just beneath. Before the latter squatted or lounged in groups quite a number of red-blanketed figures, and the deep bass hum of their voices, and an occasional laugh, rose not unmelodiously upon the still air.

“Well, MacFennel, and how’s trade?” said Greenoak, shaking hands with the innkeeper, who had come out to meet them.

“Oh, so so. What’s the latest thing in scares?”

“You ought to know that better than me. You’re nearest the spot.”

“All the more reason why I shouldn’t. More than half these scares are cooked up down in the Colony. We don’t hear much of ’em up here.”

“That won’t be good news for my young friend there”—with a nod in the direction of Dick Selmes, who had strolled away to inspect nearer the groups of Kafirs by the canteen. “He’s just spoiling for war.”

“Haw—haw!” guffawed the other. “But who is he?”

Greenoak told him, and just then Dick returned.

“Faugh!” he exclaimed. “Those chaps are a bit ‘strong’ when you get too near them.”

“Yes, stale grease and red clay don’t make a fragrant combination,” laughed Harley Greenoak. “I hope you can get us some dinner directly, MacFennel; for I can tell you we both feel like it.”

“Yes, it’s ready now. Come on in. Bring the shooters inside. It isn’t safe to leave them in the cart with all these loafers about.”

The while they had been outspanning, and now, handing over the horses to a native stable-boy, they entered.

“I say, what about the war?” said Dick to the hotel-keeper, as the latter came in to see how they were getting on. “Think there’ll be one?”

“Well, Mr Selmes, I don’t know what to say. But one can only hope not.”

Dick dropped his knife and fork, and stared.

“Hope not?” he echoed. “But think what a lot of fun we shall be done out of.”

The hotel-keeper laughed good-naturedly.

“Fun?” he said. “Well, it may be fun to you, but it’ll be death to some of us, as some fable-mongering feller said about something else—I forget what. It may be all very well for young gentlemen with plenty of money, wandering about the world on the look-out for excitement; but for us ordinary chaps who’ve got to make a living—and not an easy one at that—it spells anything but fun I can tell you. What price my place being sacked and burnt to the ground some fine night? I’ve got a wife and kiddies too—what if we didn’t get long enough warning to clear them off to Komgha quick enough? Well, that’s what war spells to us.”

“By George! I never thought of it in that light,” cried Dick Selmes, to whom the other’s quiet but good-natured reproof appealed thoroughly. “But—surely you’d get warning in time, wouldn’t you?”

“Warning. Look at those chaps out there”—designating the groups of Kafirs, now momentarily increasing, in front of the canteen, some of them visible from the window. “Some fine day they come along just as you see them now, only with businesslike assegais hidden under their blankets. Then, a sudden signal and a rush, and—where do we come in? Kafirs don’t give warning, they take you on the hop; ain’t I right, Greenoak?”

Greenoak nodded. Dick Selmes was conscious of feeling rather small. Just then, as though to emphasise the hotel-keeper’s remarks, a considerable hubbub arose outside, voices were raised—many of them, and all talking at once, and through them running a note of anger; and a lot of angry and excited Kafirs all talking at once are capable of raising a very considerable hubbub indeed.

“Why, they’re going to have a row, I do believe,” cried Dick, springing to the door, and looking out. But MacFennel never turned a hair.

“Oh, it’s only some feller got too drunk in the canteen,” he said. “Been chucked out by my assistant. It often happens, but they blow off steam in no time.”

In this case, however, no such safety-valve seemed to be in working order. A rush of excited Kafirs surged round the further end of the building. Blankets were thrown off, and with a tough kerrie in each hand, they fell to. Shouts and vociferations, the clash and splintering of hard-wood, and the more sickening crunch, as the latter fell in upon skull or shoulder—the moving mass swayed and leaped. At the same time, as though magically evolved, lines of Kafirs, some mounted on rough ponies, some afoot, came pouring along the hillside, shrilling war whistles or uttering loud whoops, and, arriving on the scene of action, flung themselves into the fray with a whole-heartedness that left nothing to be desired. The fight became one roaring general melée.

“It’s only a faction rumpus,” said the hotel-keeper, who had dived into an inner room to arm himself with a revolver, which, however, he didn’t show. “Sandili’s and Ndimba’s chaps are always getting ’em up. Rotten for me too, for it gives my place a bad name.”

The stoep, railed off, stood about four feet above the ground. In front the said ground, perfectly open, sloped away gently to a sluit, constituting a first-rate arena for a rough-and-tumble. Round on to this now, the warring savages swirled, mad with fury and blood lust, some with drink. The three white men—four now—for they had been joined by MacFennel’s assistant, who had prudently locked the canteen door—stood on the stoep watching the tumult.

“How about the rifles, Greenoak?” said Dick Selmes, in hardly to be repressed excitement.

“No. We mustn’t show sign of scare,” was the quiet answer. “We’ve got our pistols, but we needn’t show them unless absolutely necessary.”

The struggling crowd now had broken up into groups. No attempt at forming sides had been made, twos and threes they fought, and as soon as one individual went down the victors proceeded to batter the life out of him as he lay, unless others sprang to the rescue, which was often the case. Then there would be a renewed scrimmage, with slashings and parryings, and soon the ground was scattered with writhing, struggling bodies, and others, indeed, deadly still; the while the strident war whistles rent the air. Black, striving demons, eyes blazing and white teeth bared, seemed to have taken the place of the careless laughing groups of a few minutes ago.

On the left, some thirty yards away from the stoep, where stood the white spectators, was a small orchard, bounded by a low sod wall. For this, one Kafir, hardly pressed, was seen to make, with three others hot on his heels. He gained it, but his foot caught, tumbling him headlong into the ditch on the other side. With a yell his pursuers were on him, and although the spectators could not see him, the nasty crunch of the knob-kerries battering out his brains and his life, told its own tale. Dick Selmes, who had never seen any real bloodshed before, began to feel rather sick.

“Can’t we stop this, Greenoak?” he said, rather quaveringly, as a big savage, hotly pursued by four or five others, came staggering up to the stoep itself, to fall, almost at their very feet, the blood pouring from a wound in his skull.

“It’s their own quarrel,” answered Greenoak, decisively. But paying no heed to the words, the impetuous Dick had sprung down the steps and was standing over the prostrate Kafir, his revolver pointed.

“Stand back, you cowardly dogs!” he roared. “Hit a man when he’s down, would you? I’ll let daylight into you.”

Of this they understood, of course, not one word. But there was no sort of misunderstanding the pointed pistol, the flashing eyes, and the pale, determined face of the young Englishman. Growling, ferocious, like the disappointment of hungry beasts, they halted—calling to those behind them. Many of those swarmed up, kerries raised. This was no white man’s business, they roared. Let the white men interfere and they would kill the lot. All of which, of course, Dick Selmes, for his part, did not understand one word. But Harley Greenoak did.

Quickly he called out to them in their own tongue, urging that it was not worth while their losing many lives for the sake of one, which in all probability was already gone; that they themselves were well armed, and that Dick Selmes would certainly never be frightened into giving way; and further, that the sound of firing would be sure to bring the Mounted Police down upon them.

For a moment his words seemed to produce the desired effect, then a roar of defiance went up from those further back. The savages were in an ugly and dangerous mood, and their fighting blood was roused. They were armed only with sticks it was true, but they had already demonstrated what a formidable weapon an ordinary hard-wood kerrie can be in the hand of one who knows how to use it; and there were upwards of a hundred of them on the ground already, while more and more were still pressing up along the veldt paths. They seemed to have laid aside their mutual feud, and now with a scowl of hate and defiance upon each grim countenance they crowded up before the white men. And these were but four.

Harley Greenoak had his finger upon the pulse of the crowd. His keen glance in particular took in the expression of those nearest to Dick. His hand was closed round the butt of his revolver, but not yet had he drawn it. The while Dick, still pointing his, stood over the fallen man, his eyes upon the savage threatening faces which fronted him, but shining from them the steeliness of a deadly determination.

Chapter Thirteen.

Tyala.

There followed a moment of tense silence. Then a fresh hubbub arose on the outskirts of the crowd, quite a number of which broke away, and made for the lower end of the building. Harley Greenoak and MacFennel’s assistant looked at each other. Both had caught the proposed new move.

“I’ll take care of this, Mr Greenoak,” said the latter, a rough and ready, powerful young fellow who understood the Kafirs and their language as one of themselves. “Burn the house, will they? We shall see.”

He dived inside. Hardly had he done so than a change seemed to come over the fierce and threatening crowd. Anxiously the savages looked this way and that, then broke into groups, conversing more quietly. The electricity of the storm seemed to have spent itself. Harley Greenoak still stood leaning on the railing of the stoep in easy attitude—he had, as yet, shown no weapon. Probably a patrol of Mounted Police had appeared in sight, was the thought in the minds of the others.

There was a thud of horse-hoofs approaching from behind the house, and then— No squad of mounted troopers appeared, only a single Kafir, an old man, riding a sorry-looking and under-sized pony. At sight of him the mass of hitherto turbulent savages murmured respectful greeting, and a rush was made to hold his stirrup while he dismounted.

“You can put away your pistol now, Dick,” said Harley Greenoak’s quiet voice.

“Why? Have the Police turned up?” answered Dick, as he obeyed. It was significant of the absolute reliance he placed on Greenoak’s lightest word in such matters that Dick Selmes never dreamed of disputing any one of his pronouncements.

“No. Better even than that. Tyala has.”

“Who’s Tyala? Is he a chief?”

“Yes, and one of Sandili’s principal councillors. It’s a thousand pities he isn’t in Sandili’s place.”

The old man had dismounted now, and was haranguing the assembled Kafirs, such of them as were left, for quite half of the original rioters had melted away. Here was a thing to have happened, he told them. Children of the Great Chief to fall to rending each other like quarrelsome dogs, and that under the eyes of white men; just now, too, when it behoved them to stand well in the eyes of the white man.

This deliverance, however, was not exactly popular. Even the rank and venerable age of the speaker could not repress a ripple of resentful muttering. White men? Mere dogs, dogs whom they would soon send howling back to their own kraals—was the gist of it. But the old chief continued his rebuke. Let them go home, he concluded, if they could not behave otherwise than as half-grown boys.

“I see before me, my friend, Kulondeka,” he added. “Now I am going to talk with a man.”

“Eulondeka”—meaning “safe”—was the name by which Harley Greenoak was known to all the Bantu tribes south of the Zambesi. The latter greeted the old chief with great cordiality, and in a moment they were deep in conversation.

“I say, I rather like the look of that old chap,” said Dick Selmes, who had skipped up on to the stoep again—he had clean forgotten his late protégé now. “Hanged if I won’t stand him a drink. Give him a good big one, MacFennel.”

“He wouldn’t touch it, Mr Selmes; no, not if you gave him twenty cows,” answered the innkeeper, with a laugh. “He’s got such an awful example before him in the shape of his big chief, old Sandili. That old soaker would think nothing of mopping up a whole bucketful of grog, and as much more as you liked to stack under his nose.”

“By Jove!” exclaimed Dick. “We’ll give him a yard of ’bacco instead—no—give him a whole roll, I’ll stand the racket.”

“Ah, that’ll fetch him,” said the other, going inside to find the required article.

“I say, Greenoak. Introduce me,” sang out Dick. “First time I’ve seen a chief, and I must have a jaw with him—through you, of course.”

The old man, who wore about him no insignia of chieftainship, unless it were a very old and well-worn suit of European clothes, smiled kindly at the young one; and remarked that he must be the son of a very great man in his own country, for he looked it. Then, as Dick handed him the big roll of Boer tobacco which MacFennel just then brought, he fairly beamed.

“Oh, MacFennel, I wish you’d give him a lot of beads and things out of your store,” went on Dick, “also on my own account, they’ll do fine for his wives. I expect he’s got about twenty.”

“All right, Mr Selmes. He may have more though.”

“Well, give him a good lot for each one. How many has he got, Greenoak?”

This was put, Greenoak explaining that it was the desire of the son of the great English chief to make a present to each, and in the result it transpired that the old Gaika had less than twenty, but certainly more than one.

So they chatted on, Harley Greenoak not omitting to tell the chief how Dick Selmes had interfered to protect the fallen man at the risk of his own life. The frontier was in a very disturbed state, and there was no telling what might happen. There was no telling, either, of what service the act might not prove to one or both of them in the fortunes of war, and none knew this better than the old campaigner and up-country man.

The ground was like a regular battlefield. Injured men lay around, unconscious some, and breathing heavily.

Others would never breathe again; others, too, recovering from their temporary stunning, were raising themselves labouringly, staring stupidly around, as though anything but sure as to what had happened. Broken kerries lay about, and, here and there, a great smear of blood. Tyala, having filled his pipe from the new and bountiful supply he had just received, lit it and stalked around the scene of the late disorder.

“Au! This is not good, Kulondeka,” he said. “Some will be punished for this. But the fewest lying here are Ndimba’s people. That would seem to tell that ours did not begin the fight.”

“That may or may not be, Councillor of the House of Gaika,” answered Harley Greenoak, drily. “It may only mean that the Amandhlambe are the better fighters.”

“Whau!” cried Tyala, bringing his hand to his mouth with a quizzical laugh. “Now, Kulondeka, I would ask where are better fighters than the men of the House of Gaika? Where?”

“Time will show,” was the sententious reply. And on both faces was the same dry pucker, in both pairs of eyes the same comical glance. They understood each other.

Then the two talked “dark.” Greenoak was anxious to get at the temper and drift of thought of the Gaika clans under the chieftainship of the historic Sandili, all located along the border of the Cape Colony and within the same. Tyala, shrewd and wily, as all native politicians are, was trying to say as much as he could, and yet give away as little. It was a battle of wits. Yet, in actual fact, this chief threw all his influence into the scale for peace.

“Whau, Kulondeka, you know the Great Chief, as who, indeed, among all the peoples do you not know?” he said at last. “Well, then, why does not Ihuvumenté (Government) act accordingly? You know, and Ihuvumenté knows, that the man who has the Great Chief’s ear last has the Great Chief. Sandili does not wish for war, but his young men are hot of blood. Yet his ‘word’ is all-powerful, and the way he will send it forth—for great things are maturing—rests with who has his ear. We are talking, you and I, but what is for four ears is not for more.”

“Oh, it will go no further for me,” answered Greenoak. And then as the innkeeper appeared, with a great steaming kettle of black coffee, to which, when well sweetened, all natives are exceedingly partial, their conference ended.

The old chief’s eyes brightened, as now Dick Selmes began to display before him all the things he intended he should take home with him. There was a new blanket for himself—and for his wives, why, Dick seemed to have cleaned MacFennel’s store out of its whole stock of beads. Mouth accordions too, for the delectation of his younger children, shining things in gorgeous red cases—why, the delight in Tyala’s household promised to be as widespread as it was unexpected. These were made over for porterage to some of Tyala’s tribesmen who were hanging respectfully around, and then the old man got up to go.

“He is young and the son of a great man,” he said, smiling kindly at Dick. “Therefore he is generous.”

“Well, Dick, you’ve met your first Kafir chief,” said Harley Greenoak, as they watched old Tyala jogging away on his under-sized pony, a group of the late rioters in respectful attendance, some mounted, some on foot.

“Jolly old boy,” pronounced Dick, heartily. “Are they all like that?”

For answer there was a laugh. The inquirer had met his first chief; he was destined soon to meet others—men of a very different stamp, and under very different circumstances. Then his question would answer itself.

“Here’s a pretty mess,” declared the innkeeper, glancing discontentedly around. “Talk about a battlefield; why, we’ve got both killed and wounded here.”

“Hallo!” sang out Dick. “Why, my chap has mizzled.”

It was even so. The man, to protect whom Dick had so impulsively interfered, at the risk of his life—at the risk of all their lives—was no longer to be seen. He must have been only temporarily stunned, and, recovering consciousness, for reasons of his own had taken himself off while their attention had been centred on the old chief.

“Ungrateful beggar,” went on Dick. “He might have had the decency to say good-bye to us.”

“Probably he didn’t know anything of what had happened,” said Greenoak. “You must remember he was already unconscious when you put in your oar.”

“Oh—ah, I forgot that,” rejoined Dick. And then he thought no more about it.

“I think we’ll inspan and get on,” said Greenoak. “I’ll report the affair at Komgha, and they’ll send out some police, and the doctor, if he isn’t away over the Kei, that is. Well, Dick, we’ve started you with the sight of a first-class row,” he added.

“It just was a first-class one,” answered Dick. “But the after effects are a little beastly, eh? Some of these poor devils must be abominably hurt.”

“That, of course. But John Kafir, like other people, if he wants his fun, has got to pay for it. Such of these fellows as the Police scoop up as soon as they get right again will be put in the tronk for their share in to-day’s racket.”

“The mischief they will! Why? It was a fair fight.”

“That’s all right, Dick. But faction fights, however fair, are not exactly allowed on British territory, which this is. Beyond the Kei it’s a different matter.”

“We’ll go on there, won’t we?”

“Oh yes. The best way will be to join some Police patrol. Chambers, the Inspector in command of A. Troop, is in camp at Komgha now, and he’ll work it for us if any one can. Mind you, although I’m no scaremonger, it would be rather risky going far into the Gcaleka country just now, just the two of us, and I’m responsible to your dad for your safe return, you know, Dick.”

“I say, old chap, suppose we stow that responsibility question for a bit,” laughed Dick. “Makes a fellow feel too much in leading-strings, don’t you know.”

Harley Greenoak said nothing, and the cart being inspanned, they reckoned with the hotel-keeper and took the road again.

Chapter Fourteen.

The Big Gun Practice.

“Bang! Boom!”

Rock and frowning krantz rolled back the reverberations in swooping echo as the first seven-pounder spoke, launching its whistling shrapnel across the deep, thickly-bushed valley of the Tsolo River. Hardly had the echoes died away than the second gun spoke.

Simultaneously with its roar, branches and stones were seen to split and fly, on the opposite hillside, some six hundred yards away. Simultaneously, too, a deep-chested ejaculation of wonderment broke from the throats of more than double that number of human beings. But the mere handful of brown-clad, helmeted men stood calm and alert, feeling perhaps a little grim, as they marked the effect of the gun practice upon the ochre-smeared groups which dotted the hillside hard by. More and more Kafirs came hurrying up from near and far, eager to witness the fun of what was to them an entirely new experience. For this was no battle, only a “demonstration” on the part of the Frontier Armed and Mounted Police, whose recently formed battery of artillery was delighted to have a chance of showing the turbulent inhabitants of the Transkei what they might hope to expect in case of—accidents.

With each successful shot—and the new artillerymen were making wonderfully good practice—a gasp of admiring amazement ran through the entranced spectators like the breaking of a wave on the shore. These had increased till there could not have been less than a couple of thousand, reddening the slopes like a swarm of ants. They were not armed, except with sticks; and without his kerrie a Kafir rarely moves. The Police Commandant had sent word to all the principal chiefs, inviting them to witness the gun drill, and some had accepted. Besides the artillery, there were three full troops of mounted men.

Tall and bearded, his stature and smart uniform and shining sword impressing the savages no less than his calm imperturbability of demeanour, the Commandant stood, among three or four Inspectors. Two others made up the group, and these, old friends of ours—Harley Greenoak and his charge, Dick Selmes. A little way from these squatted a knot of chiefs and councillors, eagerly discussing, in a low hum, the effect of every shot. They were all old or elderly men, differing outwardly in no way from the commonest of their people. They wore the same red blanket, and some the massive ivory armlet. But the faces of all were remarkably shrewd and intelligent.

“Well, Greenoak, so you couldn’t induce old Kreli to show up?” said the Commandant, naming the great and paramount chief of all the Transkeian, and also of the Kafir tribes within the Colonial border. “Even you couldn’t manage that, eh?”

“Not even me,” was the laconic reply.

“Well, I never supposed you would. He’s got a long memory, and that warns him that it may be no safer for his father’s son within a white man’s camp than it was for his father before him.”

“Why? What happened to his father, Commandant?” eagerly struck in Dick Selmes, scenting a yarn.

“Shot—‘while trying to escape.’”

“But wasn’t he trying to escape?” said Dick, upon whom a certain significant cynicism of tone underlying this remark was not lost.

“I didn’t say he wasn’t, and history agrees that he was,” answered the Commandant, drily. “But then, you see, Kreli can’t read history, and wouldn’t believe it if he could. So he’d rather be excused coming to see the new Police artillery make very fair gun practice, and I for one don’t blame him. Why, there’s my old friend, Botmane,” he broke off, as his glance rested on the group of potentates above mentioned. Then to an orderly, “Bring him here, Harris, I must have a talk with him.”

“Who’s he?” asked Dick.

“One of Kreli’s big amapakati, or councillors,” answered Greenoak. “In fact the biggest.”

“Oh!” and he looked with vivid interest as the Kafir, an old man with a pleasant face, rose from his place in the group and strode forward, which interest deepened as he listened to the subsequent conversation. This he was able to do, as the Commandant, though perfectly at home in the vernacular, chose, for reasons of his own, to use an interpreter. But the said conversation was of no political importance, being a mere exchange of compliments, with here and there a reminiscence. The old Kafir expressed unbounded wonder at the gun practice. The white people could do anything—he declared, as he was shown the working of the guns—could kill men as far distant as anybody could see. “What was it done with?”

“Show him the powder,” said the Commandant.

This was done, and the old councillor dipped his fingers, not without awe, into the black, large-grained stuff. No wonder the guns could shoot so far with stuff like that, he remarked.

“Give him a big handful to take borne and show his chief. He can tell him what he has seen to-day,” said the Commandant.

Most savages are more or less like children over the acquisition of a novelty, and now as old Botmane rejoined his brother magnates the whole group of these craned eagerly forward to look at this mysterious and wonderful stuff which he held in the corner of his blanket, and many a deep-toned exclamation of suppressed excitement rose above the hum of animated discussion. The Police looked on in semi-contemptuous amusement.

The practice was over now, and the swarms of red-ochred savages began to melt away; though a goodly proportion remained on the ground to discuss what they had seen. Meanwhile, the Police were mounting for their return march.

With them went Harley Greenoak and Dick Selmes. The bulk of the patrol would return across the Kei to the Colonial side, but A. Troop would remain behind in camp to keep an eye on a particularly unreliable and turbulent chief named Vunisa. The officer in command of this, Inspector Chambers, and Greenoak were old friends, and it was arranged that the latter and his charge should camp with them for awhile.

At that time the Transkei was in a state of simmer, and the same might be said of the tribes inhabiting British Kaffraria. Chiefs were known to be calling in their followers; and this was done by a system that worked with marvellous rapidity. At night mysterious beacons flashed answering messages to each other from this or that lofty hill-top, and it was known that war-dancing on a real scale was going on in this or that disaffected chief’s location; and notably in that of Vunisa, situated in the Gudhluka Reserve. This Vunisa was the chief over an important section of the Gcaleka tribe.

In front of the officers’ mess hut in the A. Troop camp, a group of four sat chatting.

“Pity we can’t find out something more definite, Greenoak,” Inspector Chambers was saying. “I believe I’d be justified in arresting Vunisa on my own responsibility.”

Harley Greenoak laughed drily.

“Don’t you do it, Chambers. You’d stoke up the whole country then and there. Even if you didn’t—what price the Government? Too much zeal isn’t encouraged in the Police any more than in other departments, I take it.”

The Inspector and his sub. laughed ironically.

“Not much,” said the latter. “And these devils are war-dancing every night right bang under our noses. It’s genuine too, for I’ve seen it before, as you know.”

“By Jove! I would like to see a real war-dance,” struck in Dick Selmes. “I say, Inspector, couldn’t some of us go over some night and have a look in? Why not to-night?”

“Tired of life yet, Selmes?” answered Chambers, good-naturedly. “Because if a few of us went to have a look in at it none of us would come back—in their present state of mind. If a lot—why, there’d be no war-dance.”

“Bother!” said Dick.

The conversation rolled on; then came dusk—then dinner. Life in the open makes men drowsy. It was not long before the camp of A. Troop—bar the sentries—was fast asleep.

The night was moonless, but the blue black of the unclouded sky was beautiful with its myriad golden stars, shining as they only can shine in Southern skies. The loom of the hills was perceptibly defined, notably in one direction, where a faint glow brought into relief the V-shaped scarp of converging slopes, constituting, as it were, a portal to the country lying beyond. Hence sounds were borne, distant but indescribably weird. But the Police were accustomed to such by this time. There was war-dancing going on in the Gudhluka Reserve.

We said that the camp was fast asleep. Dick Selmes constituted an exception. Lying on his blanket outside one of the huts—he preferred to sleep in the open for the sake of freshness—he was planning out an extraordinarily mad scheme. Why should he not steal out, make his way over to Vunisa’s location, and witness the fun? It would be a chance he might never get again. As for the risk, old Chambers was probably exaggerating. Even if he were discovered, they wouldn’t hurt one man all alone. He would just give them tobacco and tell them to go on with the programme; and, acting on this idea, he rose quietly and stole out of the camp.

“Halt! Who goes there?”

Hang it! He had forgotten the confounded sentry.

“Oh, it’s all right, old man,” he answered genially. “It’s only me, and I’m taking a walk. Here, fill your pipe, I’ll be back soon,” putting a coin into the man’s hand.

Trooper Carter was not one of the best men in the Force, and F.A.M. Police pay was none too liberal in those days. The weight of a sovereign felt good.

“All right, sir. Don’t be too long, though.”

Chapter Fifteen.

The Ticking of a Watch.

Dick’s spirits rose immeasurably as he found himself clear away, with night and the open veldt around him. He was in the pink of hard training, consequently not long did it take to cover the six or seven miles that lay between the Police camp and Vunisa’s location.

The Tsolo River rippled silvery across his way, reflecting the stars. Cautiously he forded it, the water scarcely above his ankles, but his heart in his mouth lest he should make any undue splash or cause a rattle of stones. But the din in front had now become so near and deafening that it would have drowned such fifty times over.

He was through the defile now, which was not so narrow as it looked. In front a great red glow as of numerous fires, and all his pulses were a-tingle with excitement and anticipation at the thunder of stamping feet, the roar of the rhythmical chant. But—how get near enough to see without being seen?

He glanced around, then upward. The steep slopes were not very thickly bushed, but, by advancing carefully and taking advantage of every bit of cover, he might manage to get well above the scene of the rout. Slowly, tediously, he crawled, for the most part on his hands and knees. The firelight, throwing out a dull glow, reached the hill-slopes—what if the white of his face should show up to the keen-eyed savages? And then, as he reached a point whence the whole scene lay revealed before him, Dick Selmes felt that the risk he had undertaken was amply repaid.

Beneath, in an immense open space, several huge fires were burning—their light showing up clusters of round, conical-roofed huts studded all along the valley. But the broad level was covered with human beings, if so weird and satanic-looking a crew could be defined as human. There must have been considerably over a thousand of them, decided the spectator, allowing for those who were taking part in the performance alone; for, on the outside of the actual arena, squatted several rows of women, who formed a not ineffective sort of accompaniment, by a rhythmical clapping of hands, to the war-chant of the warriors. The latter were arrayed in trappings of the most fantastic nature, tufts of cow-hair flowing from leg and arm; monkey-skins, with here and there that of the leopard; wild-cat tails too, and bunches of crane feathers sticking up from their heads. All seemed bristling with assegais, but there were no shields.

As Dick Selmes took in all this the chant suddenly ceased, and the entire mass stood in motionless silence. Then one man came forward and harangued them. He was of tall, commanding figure, and the spectator wondered if this was Vunisa, the redoubtable chief, himself. Not long, however, did he talk, but more and more did his speech work up to what seemed to the listener the highest pitch of fierce frenzy. Every head was bent forward, eagerly drinking in every word; and the deep-toned murmurs of assent which greeted some of his periods reminded Dick of those which hailed the successful shooting of the Police artillery, the first time he had seen any large number of savages together.

There was a sudden tightening of the ranks. The orator had ceased. Now arose the rhythmical strophes of the war-song, low at first and fierce, then rising till it reached a perfect roar, terror-striking in the degree of ferocity unchained which it expressed, while the stamp of feet, in perfect unison, shook the ground as it were with the rumble of an earthquake. Then the whole mighty mass moved forward in line, and the light of gushing flames gleamed redly on assegai blades as the foremost warriors went through the pantomime of striking down an imaginary foe. Up and down the great open space this was repeated several times, the rear ranks manoeuvring so as to change places with the first and get their turn, in a way that was scarcely perceptible. But—what was this?

For now, behind the surging mass of fantastically arrayed warriors, came a file of women. Each was armed with a tough knob-kerrie, and beat on the ground with a vicious whack now and then during the advance. They were finishing off the wounded after a battle.

For upwards of an hour Dick Selmes lay, witnessing this weird but striking and dramatic scene, in a state of mind little short of entrancement. There was a fascination about it that made him long to rush down the hill and shout and stamp with the rest. No wonder they wanted a strong Police camp in the neighbourhood, he thought, if this sort of thing was going on all over Kafirland; and it struck him uneasily what a mouthful their own particular camp might prove if these and a few more were to hurl themselves upon it while in that state of frenzy. The thought of the camp suggested that it might be high time to think of getting back there.

“Well, I’ve seen something to-night, and no mistake,” he said to himself. “My hat! but I’ll have the grin over Greenoak and old Chambers to-morrow.”

The flame of the fires blazed up higher than ever. As he turned to carry out his intention, he found his way barred, and that by a line of ochre-smeared, brawny savages. He marked the cruel sneer on each broad, dark face, the gleam of uplifted blades, and then realised his utter helplessness. For, fearing to wake Harley Greenoak, who would certainly have prevented his mad trip, he had refrained from going into the hut to fetch his revolver. Now he was totally unarmed.

With quick ejaculations the Kafirs hurried forward, some in crouching attitude, like cats advancing on their prey, others erect, but all with eyes fixed warily upon him, for they expected him to draw a pistol. Then they scattered, spreading out so that some should steal above and behind him.

In that moment Dick Selmes knew what it was to feel that his last hour had come. He had no knowledge of the language, so could not try the effect of parley. So, by way of signifying that he was not there with hostile intent, he extended both hands—open.

The effect was magical. Realising for the first time that he was unarmed, the savages flung themselves upon him. Powerful and in good training as he was, what could he do against numbers? At the same time, a blanket was flung over his head and face, blinding and effectually stifling him in its nauseous folds, and he was borne to the earth and effectually pinioned by many and muscular hands.

Inspector Chambers was an officer of promptitude and decision, and on Harley Greenoak waking him up in the grey of dawn with the news that Dick Selmes was nowhere in the camp, the sentries of the night before were at once called to account, and the truth came out. The young gentleman was not one of themselves, explained the defaulter, who supposed, therefore, that he was not under the same orders. Ordering the man to be put under arrest, the Inspector gave his directions, and in a surprisingly short space of time nearly the whole troop was mounted and heading at a trot for Vunisa’s location.

“That’s where we’ll find him,” pronounced Greenoak, adding grimly, “if we find him at all. He’ll have gone to look at that war-dance, sure as eggs. I ought to have known he’d be trying it and kept my eye on him.”

Pummelled, pushed, hustled, his hands and arms secured with innumerable knots of raw-hide; half suffocated, wholly nauseated by the greasy effluvium of the filthy blanket which still enveloped his head and shoulders, Dick Selmes was hurried down the hill by his captors. To his attempts at speech with them, in the hope that even one among them might understand English, the only reply was a savage growl in their own tongue, accompanied by a dig in the back with the butt end of a kerrie. Still, he did his best to keep his faculties of hearing undimmed, and, listening with all his might, it seemed as though the roar of the war-dance, instead of drawing nearer, became less marked. Whither were they taking him? All sorts of frontier stories of the old wars which he had heard came back to his mind: of the unsparing barbarities practised by these savages on any unfortunate white man who should fall into their hands; of soldiers, straggling from a column, cut off in the thick bush and slowly roasted to death with red-hot stones, or spread naked over a nest of black ants; of settlers, surprised by the suddenness of the outbreak, driven back to perish in the flaming ruins of their own homesteads. And now he himself was in the power of these very fiends! They were dragging him back to put him to some such end, to delight the whole location with the spectacle of his lingering torments. Shuddering with horror at the thought, the unfortunate fellow hardly noticed whither he was being hurried. Then he was suddenly and roughly flung to the ground, his legs tightly tied together at the ankles, by which he was now seized, and unceremoniously dragged through what he guessed to be the door of a hut.

Once within, a light was struck; the homely match of civilisation flaring feebly, but just enough to render more fiend-like still the fell, savage faces and forms decked with their wild war-trappings. This the prisoner was able to make out for a moment, for the blanket which covered his head and shoulders was removed. But only for a moment, for an effectual gag was forced into his mouth, and then the suffocating, nauseous covering was replaced. After a minute or two of muttered conversation, his captors withdrew.

And now for the unfortunate Dick Selmes followed a night of indescribable horror. To the certainty of being dragged forth at dawn to a death of unimaginable agony was added the torments of the present—the cramping pain of his bonds, the nauseous suffocation of the gag, and the bites of innumerable small pests of no account whatever to the savage, but calculated to drive a highly civilised and utterly helpless white man to the verge of insanity. Rescue! Of that there was no hope. The Police troop might hold its own on the defensive, but, after what he had seen last night, he could not believe it would stand a chance against these fierce warriors fighting on their own ground; besides, he himself would be murdered the first thing. And then he remembered how he of his own act had effectually cut off all trace as to his whereabouts. Even Harley Greenoak would fail to fathom the mystery of his disappearance—until too late. Again and again he bitterly cursed his own rashness.

Then, as the remaining hours of the night wore on, merciful Nature came to the relief of the sufferer, in that he sank into a state somewhat between sleep and unconsciousness, which at length took shape in a dream. The Police troop had come to his rescue. He could hear voices—those of the Inspector Chambers and Harley Greenoak, mingling with the deeper tones of his savage gaolers. He tried to call out, but could utter no sound. They were withdrawing; still he was perforce dumb. They had gone away. Ah, the agony of it! He strained at his bonds—nearly suffocated himself with the horrible gag. All of no avail.

Very different looked Vunisa’s location—now silent in slumber—as the Police rode up, to the weird and stirring scene it had presented throughout the best part of the night, but the yelping and barking of innumerable curs soon brought forth some of its denizens. These stood, open-mouthed with astonishment at the sight of the carbines and revolvers of the Police troopers.

“The chief,” said Harley Greenoak, decisively, “Vunisa, the chief. We have a ‘word’ to him.”

Scowling sullenly, the savages began to make the usual excuses. The chief was sick, and so on.

“A lie!” said Greenoak. “Bring him forth at once or we put the torch into every hut in this valley.”

By now all were astir. More than half the revellers had gone home, but there were yet an awkwardly large number left, even for nearly a hundred armed and mounted men. Still a hurried consultation went on, then, just as Greenoak was losing patience, the chief himself appeared.

Vunisa was a tall, powerful man, with rather a heavy and sullen face, but not without dignity even then. He had done nothing wrong, he protested; why, then, should the Government send the amapolise into his kraal and threaten to destroy it?

“The young white man who came here last night,” said Harley Greenoak. “Where is he?”

The chief turned to his followers. What was this about a young white man? Did anybody know? The while, Greenoak, who had dismounted, was watching him keenly. No. Nobody knew.

“Then Vunisa will be arrested,” he said.

The chief started, ever so slightly. An ominous hubbub arose among his followers, the bulk of whom dived quickly into the huts again. They had gone to arm.

In a moment they emerged, and the glint of assegai blades and the wave of hard sticks was everywhere, as the kraal became alive with swarming savages, the mutter of deep-toned voices eloquent with suppressed hate and menace. And they outnumbered the Police ten to one.

The latter had loaded with ball cartridge. Even then a sudden rush and the sheer weight of numbers was bound to overwhelm them, out in the open. But it was not made. The Kafirs seemed to hold that little armed force in wholesome respect. Still the merest accident might bring about a collision. The situation had become tense to dramatic point. What if Vunisa should persist in his disclaimer? There was a moment of dead, boding silence. Harley Greenoak broke it.

“Inspector, kindly send three of your men to search that hut,” pointing to one next to that whence Vunisa had emerged. “If the chief moves he will be shot,” he added, in the Xosa language.

Amid dead silence the three troopers entered. In a moment, from the interior of the hut, ejaculations were heard; then, through the low doorway there crawled forth a man—hatless, dirty with perspiration and smears of red-ochre; in short, with a generally dilapidated appearance. And then up stood Dick Selmes, rubbing his eyes.

“Hallo, Greenoak! Hallo, Inspector, how are you? I say, I’m jolly glad you’ve turned up. I’m more than a bit sick of spending the night tied up in an old Kafir blanket—faugh!—and not able to move finger or toe.”

“You may thank your lucky stars you’d got a watch on, and that there was just a moment of silence in which I heard it tick,” rejoined Harley Greenoak, gravely.

“Eh?”—puzzled. “That how you found me? Through the ticking of a watch?”

“That—and no other way. It’d be like hunting for a needle to look for you in this location, even if we hadn’t to fight our way out first. Well, your dad was right. You are a record for getting into hornets’ nests.”

There was no more to be done. Inspector Chambers was not going to take the responsibility of arresting Vunisa simply because this young fool had run his head, as Greenoak had said, into a hornets’ nest. So, after reading that potentate a severe lecture, he withdrew his force.

There was another who came in for a sample of the lecture, and that was Dick Selmes. If he chose to hold out his own throat to be cut, he might as well wait until he was on his own responsibility, and so on. To all of which Dick listened very penitently.

“Think they really meant cutting my throat, Inspector?” he said.

“That’s just exactly what they did intend,” interposed Harley Greenoak. “They were going to cut your throat after we had gone, and then burn the hut over you, so as to destroy all trace.”

“The mischief they were! But how do you know, Greenoak?”

“Because I overheard them saying so, as we came away,” was the tranquil reply. “They were likewise expressing disappointment at being done out of such a rare bit of fun.”

“Ugh, the brutes!” exclaimed Dick, turning in his saddle to scowl back at the dark forms gathered on the hillside, watching the retreating Police. “I’ll pay them out for it when the war begins.”

“When the war begins,” repeated Inspector Chambers. “Well, it’s our particular mission just now to prevent it from beginning at all; but if ever anybody came within an ace of starting it, why, that joker’s yourself, this very morning, Selmes. Eh, Greenoak?”

The latter nodded assent.

Chapter Sixteen.

Mainwaring’s “Gas-Pipe.”

Dick was greatly concerned over the consequences his escapade was likely to entail upon the sentry who had let him through. He said nothing about the bribe, but all unconsciously repeated the man’s own line of defence; to wit, that he supposed the defaulter had reckoned that he, being a guest, was free to go and come as he pleased. In short, he gave Inspector Chambers no peace until that good-hearted officer, glad to find a pretext for remitting punishment on anybody, promised to let the man off with a reprimand; but only on condition that Dick, on his part, would undertake not to launch out in any more madcap and foolhardy ventures on his own account while sojourning in the camp.

This act made Dick very popular among the Police, which popularity was consolidated by his free and easy, unaffected way with everybody. He entered with zest, too, into any of the amusements which they got up to vary the monotony of camp life—cricket or athletic sports, or shooting practice; and as he was in the pink of condition, and a fine runner and jumper, it was seldom that in such he would meet his match. Or if any patrol was sent out, he would not be left behind. His keenness and energy were alike unflagging.

Things seemed to be quieting down. Harley Greenoak, who would sometimes be absent for two or three days at a time, visiting this or that chief—for he could move freely among them, where with another it would have been at that juncture in the highest degree unsafe—reported that there was a more settled feeling. True the Kafir and Fingo locations were eyeing each other from beyond their respective boundaries with distrust, but there was no longer the threatening and aggressive bearing on the part of the one, or the alarmed uneasiness on that of the other. It looked as if matters would settle themselves.