nd here is
green and the grass soft and fresh. Who would have thought the pasture
in the Gombazana Forest could be better?"

Here again was food for fresh discomfiture. For how should Kulondeka
have known so accurately that the tribe had been steadily sending away
all its women and children to the wooded fastnesses he had mentioned, in
order to have its hands free entirely? Yet what did not Eulondeka know?

"For that," answered Matanzima, "there may be some reason. The Ama
Gcaleka might come over and seize some of our cattle to make up for all
your people took from them, what time we did not aid them. Ah--ah!
What time we did not aid them," he added significantly.

"If you feared that, why did you not send word to Bokelo?" said
Greenoak, using the name by which the Commandant was known among the
tribes. "He would have sent sufficient _Amapolise_ to patrol the
border, so that such a thing could not have befallen."

The look on Matanzima's face at the mention of such a contingency would
have escaped pretty nearly any other man than Harley Greenoak. Him it
did not escape. Yes. He was getting his finger more and more tightly
on "the pulse."

"When there is lightning in the air, does a man go about flourishing
steel," was the reply, with another amused laugh. "_Whau_! some of our
people are hotheaded, and not always clear-sighted--as you yourself have
just seen," he added whimsically. "There has been lightning in the air,
and Bokelo's _Amapolise_ might be just the steel which should draw down
the crash."

"Now, listen to me, Matanzima, and we will talk `dark' no longer," said
Greenoak, becoming impressive. "You have referred to me as your
`father,' and that is just what I want to be to you. I want to see you
great and powerful, and at the head of your nation. I do not want to
see you--with others--spend the rest of your life in the white man's
prison. The Great Chief Sandili, is old and infirm, and are you not his
`great' son? It cannot be long before you yourself are Chief of the
House of Gaika! _Whau_! look around. Is it not a splendid land which
is given you wherein to dwell? Are not the people prosperous and happy,
with cattle grazing by their tens of thousands in valley and on hill?
Why, then, fling all this away with both hands? Why exchange it all--
for what? Ask those of your people who have passed years of their lives
in the white man's prison, for any offence against the white man's laws.