huts that are over the drift where the great rocks are.
There are Kafirs there who will not fear this luggage of
yours. They will sell food and shelter, and refrain from
curiosity. Will that serve the baas?'

"'Surely,' said Barend, and tossed him some tobacco.

"The old Kahr caught the horses for them and helped them to
lift the dead man to the saddle. By this time the body had
become stiff, and needed a constant effort to hold it
steady. The sun was hot as they rode on, and the dust
smoked up about the fetlocks of the horses. The stiff feet
of the dead man were in the stirrups, and as now and again
they broke into a short canter, he seemed as though he
would stand up in his stirrups to look ahead.

"'So Emmanuel always did when he rode among ant-heaps,'
said Peter once.

"Barend only grunted in reply; the strain on his arm and
wrist was a heavy one.

"They camped that night at the huts the old Kafir had
spoken of. The Kafirs there were of a large build, strong
and silent. They glanced once or twice at the body, but
said nothing.

Food was forthcoming--, and a big clean hut, and here the
two Boers slept beside the corpse. It was only next
morning, when they had mounted and were about to start,
that one, with the head-ring of dignity about his scalp,
gave a word of counsel.

"He stood at Barend's bridle, looking up to him with a sort
of pity.

"'The day will be hot, baas,' he said, 'and that will be
doubly burdensome. So you may know that beyond the Nek,
where the mimosas grow on a damp plain, the ground is very
soft. There are huts there, and shovels.'

"Barend nodded his thanks, and they rode through the drift
and up the Nek. It was, as the Kafir had predicted, a hot
day. One of those days which come in the throng of the
summer, when the sun is an oppressor, ruthless and joying
in pain, when the earth is dead with heat and dryness and
the very air forbears to take a freedom I When they came
down the slopes beyond the crest, the flanks and rumps of
the horses were slimy with running sweat, and red nostrils
spoke of distress. The dead man sat in the saddle with a
thin show of eyeball under each lowered lid, and a gleam of
teeth above the sunken lower lip, yet for all the world
like one that follows a purpose, like one guiding himself
to a steadfast end. In the face there was a growing hue
that does not visit the living, but the hat-brim cast a
shadow over it that lent it an effect of deep gravity and