his saddle. "You'll
know what to do when you see what's going on."

A minute later, and they did see, and what they saw was this. The
waggon was at a standstill. The two leading mules were down--one
motionless, the other struggling and kicking frantically. Of the police
escort half had been killed, and the remnant, now dismounted, were
standing, back to the waggon on either side, with revolver pointed,
facing a swarm of dark leaping figures, closing in more and more,
uttering their vibrating war-hiss, yet still not quite liking to face
those deadly revolvers.

"Charge!" shouted Lamont. "Divide. Half of us each side."

With a wild, roaring cheer the men spurred forward. The assailants did
not wait. Uttering loud cries of warning and dismay they fled
helter-skelter for more secure cover, and not all reached it, for the
irresistible impetus of their charge had carried the rescuers right in
among the discomfited Matabele, whom they shot down right and left,
well-nigh at point-blank.

"Quick, some of you cut loose those mules," ordered Lamont. "Steele,
you're a good man at that sort of thing. Three, all told, will be
enough."

In a trice the two wounded leaders were cut loose, the one still kicking
being given its quietus. Wyndham, the while, kept to his business as
driver with an unswerving attention that no temptation to bear a hand in
the fight caused him to lose sight of for a moment, and in an incredibly
short space of time the reduced team was on the move again.

Lamont's glance took in Clare Vidal's pale, set face with a glow of
indescribable relief. She was uninjured, and he noted further that she
gripped the revolver he had given her as though she had been using it.
She, for her part, was fully appraising this man, whom last she had seen
cool, indifferent, rather cynical. Now--grimy, unshaven, fierce-eyed--
he was all fire and energy, and she noted further that he seemed in
every way as one born to command. The alacrity with which the others
sprang to execute his orders did not escape her either--even Jim Steele,
whose ambition the other day had been to punch his head.

"Get your mules along as quick as you can, Wyndham," he said. "We must
be a good hour from the Kezane, and when these devils discover we are
not the advance guard of a bigger force they'll make it lively for us
again."

One more quick look, and that was all, then his attention was turned
solely and entirely to the matter in h