y, daddy! the bear, the bear!" screamed Joan, hiding her small,
scared face against her father's arm, burrowing her fluffy head beneath
his coat like a frightened rabbit.

"Do you know what the people over there are staring at, father?" asked
Darby, in a low, strained voice, while his lips quivered so that he
could hardly articulate the words. "It's Joe, father, Thieving Joe--Joe
Harris and Moll! They've got Bruno with them--the bear, you
remember--and he's dancing and capering. But there's foam at his mouth,
and his eyes are glittering; for Joe's raging at him just the way he
used to do, and lashing him on his legs with the long whip. Oh, it's
dreadful!" and the boy shuddered, more at the recollection of past
terror than in fear of present danger. His father's strong fingers were
folded firmly round his little hand; so he held up his head and tried to
feel brave.

"Are you sure?" asked Major Dene, in a queer, tense tone--a tone which
Darby had never heard from his father in all his life before.

"Quite, quite sure," answered the boy decidedly. "Do you think I _could_
be mistaken?"

"And I's sure too," added Joan, lifting her head for the first time, and
looking timidly about her with wide, tearful blue eyes, as if she
expected to see Bruno waiting to play at hide-and-seek with her from
behind her father's back. "I'd like to speak to Mrs. Moll, 'cause she
heard me say my p'ayers and put me to bed. But I don't want never to see
that howid Joe or the dwedful big bear no more. Please pwomise you won't
let them come near us, daddy!" she begged in piteous accents.

"Take the children home at once--directly," said Major Dene to Perry,
who, breathless and flushed, at this point joined them, with Eric
kicking and struggling in her arms, quite cross, because he wanted a
longer look at the huge beast, which in his baby eyes appeared neither
more nor less than a great big pussy cat.

"Please, sir--" began Perry; but the expression of her master's face
checked the words, whatever she had intended to say, on the woman's
lips, and obediently she drew the little ones away. It was such a look
as his men might have seen in their commander's eyes as he doggedly led
them on to avenge some of the blood that has flowed so free and red to
enrich the arid plains of South Africa, at the cost, alas! of the
impoverishment of many a desolated heart. But none of his home folks had
ever seen those frank, smiling eyes snap and sparkle in the w