ctly," he retorted. "But if I'm in a position to know, I'm in a
position not to tell. See?"

There was a laugh, in which the offender, who at first looked resentful,
joined.

"What's the joke?" asked James, who at that moment entered.

"Joke? Oh, Slingsby's putting up idiotic questions," answered Hallam
shortly. "Here, Mabule," to the Bar-keeper, "set 'em up again--you know
every one's pet poison. What's yours, Mr Denham? You'll join?"

"Thanks. All right," answered Denham, who had come to the conclusion
that the hospitality of this club required a strong head, which,
fortunately, he possessed. But Harry Stride, less fortunate, did not.

"I can tell you all about that yarn," he broke in. "Slingsby's not so
wide of the mark either. Some one has come to grief in the Makanya, and
a white man too, for I picked up a saddle in the Bobi drift, and it had
a bullet hole through the flap, an unmistakable bullet hole."

"You picked it up?" said some one, while Inspector James, who was "in
the know," muttered to himself, "Damned silly young ass!"

Then followed a considerable amount of questionings and discussion.
When was this, and where, and how would it have happened, and what had
he done with the saddle, and so forth? Hallam, it might have been
noticed, stood out of the discussion altogether. Perhaps he was "in the
know" also; at any rate, as an official, he was instinctively averse to
making public property of this kind of thing. But Harry Stride had got
outside of quite as many whiskies-and-sodas as were good for him, and
the effect, coming on top of his then state of frothy mental tension,
was disastrous. Now he said--

"You must have crossed just above the Bobi drift, Mr Denham. I hear
you came through the Makanya that way."

"Yes, I shouldn't wonder if it was somewhere about there," answered
Denham easily. "But, you see, I didn't know any of the names of drifts
and so on. I just `drifted' on."

"Were you alone?" queried Stride, with a marked emphasis on the last
word, and looking the other full in the face.

There could be no possible mistake as to the meaning. A scarcely
perceptible start ran through those present. This was getting too thick
altogether, was the general opinion.

"Very much so, except when I could get hold of some black chap for a
guide," answered Denham, easily again. "I suppose, though, in the light
of your discovery I must consider myself jolly lucky to have come
throug