ut few
horses, and those few, thanks to having been ridden almost from
foalhood, of weedy and undersized proportions. Now it was different.
He could no more distance the fleet-footed savages than they could have
overtaken him when mounted. On foot, he was at their mercy.

There was only one thing to be done under the circumstances. Since he
could not ride, he must walk. No sooner decided than acted upon.
Hiding the saddle and bridle among the bush on the _kopje_, and
pocketing what remained of his store of provision, he started. Nearly
an hour had been lost in his attempts at capturing his miserable traitor
of a steed, and now the sun was already down. Well, so much the better.
Travelling would be safer by night than by day.

To one accustomed to ride, nothing is more disconcerting than to find
himself unexpectedly dismounted, in wild, little-known, and dangerous
country. It is even demoralising, for it engenders a feeling or
helplessness. A mere man, the only animal without any speed in his
legs, is such an insignificant object amid the wild stretch of nature;
his capacity for advance and retreat so limited under such
circumstances. And he realises it.

Certainly Roden Musgrave realised it that night as he tramped on wearily
beneath the stars. Even finding the way was quite a different matter
when afoot to what it had been when mounted. Instead of a few minutes'
_detour_ to a point whence an observation might be made, now it meant
quite a long and toilsome tramp, with the galling consciousness that all
that toil carried him no farther on his way. The thin sickle of a new
moon hung in the heavens, and for this he felt duly grateful, for
without its light, faint though that was, he would have made but sorry
progress amid stones and antheaps and thorns and long grass and meerkat
holes.

For hours thus he kept on. Once he saw the red glow of a fire not far
from his line of route, and his heart leaped. A patrol? No. A
moment's thought served to show that no patrol would have its camp-fire
alight at so late an hour. It could be nothing less formidable than a
Kaffir encampment, and that of a strong force, judging from the
fearlessness manifested in the small amount of care taken to conceal the
blaze. And a Kaffir encampment meant an enemy's encampment, and that
enemy a savage one. So he avoided the vicinity of the light, and held
on his way with increased watchfulness.

What weary work it was, mile up