scence of
the veld, some spot down in the Wakkerstroom country, though for the
life of me I couldn't place it.

I pass over the next three days, for they were one uninterrupted series
of heart-breaks. Hussin and Peter scoured the country for horses,
Blenkiron sat in the barn and played Patience, while I haunted the
roadside near the bridge in the hope of picking up some kind of
conveyance. My task was perfectly futile. The columns passed, casting
wondering eyes on the wrecked car among the frozen rushes, but they
could offer no help. My friend the Turkish officer promised to wire to
Angora from some place or other for a fresh car, but, remembering the
state of affairs at Angora, I had no hope from that quarter. Cars
passed, plenty of them, packed with staff-officers, Turkish and German,
but they were in far too big a hurry even to stop and speak. The only
conclusion I reached from my roadside vigil was that things were
getting very warm in the neighbourhood of Erzerum. Everybody on that
road seemed to be in mad haste either to get there or to get away.

Hussin was the best chance, for, as I have said, the Companions had a
very special and peculiar graft throughout the Turkish Empire. But the
first day he came back empty-handed. All the horses had been
commandeered for the war, he said; and though he was certain that some
had been kept back and hidden away, he could not get on their track.
The second day he returned with two--miserable screws and deplorably
short in the wind from a diet of beans. There was no decent corn or
hay left in the countryside. The third day he picked up a nice little
Arab stallion: in poor condition, it is true, but perfectly sound. For
these beasts we paid good money, for Blenkiron was well supplied and we
had no time to spare for the interminable Oriental bargaining.

Hussin said he had cleaned up the countryside, and I believed him. I
dared not delay another day, even though it meant leaving him behind.
But he had no notion of doing anything of the kind. He was a good
runner, he said, and could keep up with such horses as ours for ever.
If this was the manner of our progress, I reckoned we would be weeks in
getting to Erzerum.

We started at dawn on the morning of the fourth day, after the old
farmer had blessed us and sold us some stale rye-bread. Blenkiron
bestrode the Arab, being the heaviest, and Peter and I had the screws.
My worst forebodings were soon realized, and Hus