tood how to use. Instinctively once more he let out, and landed
another, this time between wind and water, doubling him up in the road,
a squirming kicking shape. The remaining pair sprang back a step or two
with knobsticks raised, ready to rush him both at once, when--suddenly
both took to their heels.

The cause of this welcome diversion took the form of a horseman. He was
armed with rifle and revolver, and had a full bandolier of cartridges
over his shoulder. As he stepped out to meet him, Kenneth could see he
was young, and well-looking. His first words showed that he was a
Dutchman.

"_Wie's jij_?" he asked, sharply, as his horse started, and backed from
the approaching figure. Then peering down, and catching sight of the
face, he cried, in would-be jovial tones:

"_Maagtig_, Colvin. You, is it? Ah, ah, I know where you have just
come from. Ah, ah! You are _slim_!"

CHAPTER FIVE.

SOMETHING OF A PLOT.

Kenneth Kershaw narrowly scanned the face of this very opportune new
arrival, and decided that he didn't know him from Adam. The other
looked at him no less fixedly, and it was clear that he did not know him
from Colvin.

Colvin, again? What the deuce was the game now? But he decided to play
up to the _role_. He might get at something.

"So you know where I have just come from, eh, _ou' maat_?" he said.
"Now where is that?"

"Ah! ah! Miss Wenlock is a pretty girl, isn't she?" rejoined the other
meaningly. "_Ja_, Colvin, you are a _slim kerel_. Prettier girl than
Aletta, isn't she?"

Aletta? That must be the Boer girl Colvin was supposed to be entangled
with, decided Kenneth quickly. But what was her other name, and who the
devil was this good-looking young Dutchman who talked English so well?
Aletta's brother possibly. He just replied "H'm," which might have
meant anything, and waited for the other to continue.

"What will Aletta say when she knows?" went on the Boer, and his
bantering tone, through which the smouldering glow of malice underlying
it could not entirely be kept from showing, gave Kenneth his cue.

"Say? Oh, but she need not know," he answered with just a touch of
well-simulated alarm.

"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the other. "Need not know? I think, friend
Colvin, I have got you on toast, as you English say, for I shall take
very good care she does know. The fact is I have been watching you for
some time--from the time you met Miss Wenlock at Park Station right up