tton-shirted,
cabbage-tree-hatted bushman, soon fixed up all details. He annexed the
horses belonging to the store, sagely remarking that, as Hugh had saved
their owner's life, he could afford to let him have a few horses. He
also helped himself to pack-saddles, camping gear, supplies, and all
sorts of odds and ends--not forgetting a couple of gallons of
rum, mosquito-nets made of cheese cloth, blankets, and a rifle and
cartridges. They fitted out the expedition in fine style, while
unconscious Sampson slept the sleep of the half-drowned. The placid
Chinese cook fried great lumps of goat for them to eat, heedless of all
things except his opium-pipe, to which he had recourse in the evening,
the curious dreamy odour of the opium blending strangely with the
aromatic scent of the bush.

At daylight they started, and for three days rode through the
wilderness, camping out at night, while the horses with bells and
hobbles grazed round the camp. Tommy Prince steered a course by
instinct, guided as unerringly as the Israelites by their pillar of
fire.

By miles of trackless, worthless wilderness, by rolling open plains,
by rocky ranges and stony passes, they pushed out and ever further out,
till at last, one day, Tommy said, "They ought to be hereabouts, some
place." So saying, he dropped a lighted match into a big patch of grass,
and in a few seconds a line of fire half a mile wide was roaring across
the plain; above it rose smoke as of a burning city.

"They'll see that," said Tommy, "without the buff'loes have got 'em."
So they camped for the day under a huge banyan-fig tree and awaited
developments. About evening, away on the horizon, there arose an
answering cloud of smoke, connecting earth and sky, like a waterspout.

"That's them," said Tommy. They climbed once more into their saddles,
and set out. Just as the sun was setting, they saw a singular procession
coming towards them. In front rode two small, wiry, hard-featured,
inexpressibly dirty men on big well-formed horses. They wore dungaree
trousers, which had once been blue, but were now begrimed and
bloodstained to a dull neutral colour. Their shirts--once coloured, but
now nearly black--were worn outside the trousers, like a countryman's
smock frock, and were drawn in at the waist by broad leathern belts full
of cartridges. Their faces were half-hidden by stubbly beards, and their
bright alert eyes looked out from under the brims of two as dilapidated
felt hats