miles out from camp with him. "Sandili is trying to slip through
into the Amatola at one rush, but sending that, he's sending his chaps
through in driblets. Shouldn't wonder if you fell in with a patrol or
two. But if you're spotted by the niggers, no matter how few, leg it;
do you hear? leg it; for you never know how many more are close by."

"Pho! They ain't mounted, and if they were, wouldn't know now to ride.
I've raced a whole day in front of a wild, mad, yelling war-party of
Sioux devils; and if your John Kaffir can make things warmer than that,
Darrell, he's welcome to try."

"Eh? The deuce you have!" said Darrell in amazement. "Here, I'll come
a mile or two farther, and let's have the yarn."

"No, no. I don't feel like yarning--anyway just now. Well, so long.
No fear about me. I'm not going to turn up missing."

The ride, though lonely, was a delightful one. The day was of unclouded
loveliness and the air fresh and exhilarating as a cordial. Away on
either hand stretched the grand open country, rolling in wide grassy
plains, heaving up into rugged and stony ranges, here and there
deepening into a bush-grown river-valley. The life of the wild veldt
was never still--the cheery whistle of spreews, glinting from spray to
spray in sheeny flashes of light, and the metallic, half-grating note of
the yellow thrush; the soft shout of the hoopoe, echoing from the
distance, mingling with the softer voices of doves, which were dashing
alarmed from the grotesque heads of the plumed euphorbia, disturbed by
the horse's tread. Great webs lay spread from bush to bush, each
containing several huge spiders, black and horny; and of these the
horseman would now and again receive a shower right in his face--not
being always able to guide his horse so as to clear them. But the
insects, though hideous, were quite innocuous, and, relishing the
encounter as little as the human party to the same, dropped off
immediately upon contact. Buck, too--the wary bushbuck and dainty
little duiker--would rustle up with a mighty disturbance, to bound away
in the scrub or long grass, flashing a white flag of defiance.

"Game lies close--that's a good sign," meditated the horseman. "But it
goes like the devil once it is up--that's a bad one. Well, it may be a
good one too, meaning only that this section has been well patrolled."

It was tantalising, very, as he watched the animals bound away in
gracefully flying leaps, affording t