forgive me, when he
'went sick' this morning I half thought he was malingering. Poor
chap . . . he's quit of the Frontier sooner than he thought for,
without any help from me. You were with him, I suppose, . . . at the
last?"

"Yes; for the best part of two hours," Dick answered, absently helping
himself to a cheroot. "Never saw a man take it harder. No getting him
to make a fight for it. Kept on begging me to tell him if this show
was fellow's only chance; and . . . I couldn't."

Lenox looked intently at his friend.

"That so?"

The other nodded; and there was a short silence. Richardson took up a
photograph of old Sir John Meredith, and examined it with critical
interest.

"You might have sent for Peters," Lenox said at length,

"No earthly use. He swore like a trooper when I suggested it; and I
can't blame him. Professional platitudes are not the style of physic
to ease a man when he's suffering hell's own torments in his mind and
body." He set down the picture abruptly, and swung round on his heel.
"I'll be going on now, for a tub, and a change of clothing. Idiotic of
me, no doubt; but I feel a bit off colour after all that. How about
the funeral? To-night?"

"No. First thing to-morrow. I'll arrange it with Peters before he
leaves; and get Courtenay to let me off the sick-list, if I can." Then
grasping the younger man's shoulder with rough kindliness, he added:
"Good old Dick. Pull yourself together, and come back here for dinner.
It may be my turn . . . or yours, before we're through. And if it
is . . . we don't go out like snuffed candles, remember. You may take
my word for it."

"Hope to God you're right," the other answered between his teeth, and
was gone.

Next morning, in a flaming dawn, all that remained of Tom Hodson was
consigned, with military honours, to the dust of that Frontier he had
grown to hate, because it demands so much of a man, and offers so
little in return; and every house within earshot of the cemetery
vibrated to the three parting volleys fired over the open grave.

Lenox was present at the service; and at the gun practice that followed
shortly after it. Thirty grains of phenacetin and several forbidden
pipes, had ensured him six hours' sleep, and a cooler skin; with the
result that he had successfully induced an amused medical officer to
report him 'fit for duty.' But Nature is relentless; and Lenox,
driving back from 'orderly room' through a white-hot gl