t
stiffened.

"Let me see, I know the voice," he said, staring at the new arrival.
"But--"

The other laughed.

"Thought I'd give you a little surprise," he said. "I'm Ancram. We
were staying at Courtland together, don't you remember?"

"Oh yes--perfectly. Come in. I didn't recognise you at first because--
er--"

"I haven't had a shave for a week," supplemented the other, with an easy
laugh. "Well, we can put that right now."

"It did make a difference certainly. Well, and how are you, Ancram?"

"Hallo!" sung out Peters, appearing at the door. "Brought off your
surprise yet, Ancram? He said I wasn't to give away his name, Lamont,
because he wanted to spring a surprise on you. Ha-ha!"

CHAPTER THREE.

TAKING IN THE STRANGER.

Decidedly Lamont had had a surprise sprung upon him. Whether it was an
agreeable one or not is another matter.

His greeting of the new arrival was polite rather than cordial; even
pleasant, but not spontaneous. There was a vast difference in his
handshake here to that wherewith he had welcomed Peters, for instance;
nor did he use the formula, "Glad to see you." Ancram noticed this, and
so did Peters.

Lamont was nothing if not downright, and would never say a thing he did
not mean. Peters knew this, wherefore he began to feel mightily
uncomfortable, and wished he hadn't brought the stranger along. But
then Ancram had asked him point-blank if he could tell him where to find
Lamont, who was a friend of his, and whom he had heard was settled
somewhere in these parts; and he had received the question with a great
roar of laughter, replying that no man in all Rhodesia was more fully
qualified to give him that very information. But if this outsider's
presence was going to prove a thorn in the side of his friend,--rather
than do anything to annoy whom he would have cut off his right hand,--
why, the sooner they scooted him off the better, decided Peters. Aloud
he said--

"Here's luck, Ancram. What would you have given for this jolly long
drink when you were strolling about in the _doorstland_, hey?"

"Just about all I was worth," laughed the other, sending down the
remains of his whisky-and-selzogene with infinite gusto.

"I'm afraid you'll find these quarters a bit rough, Ancram," said
Lamont. "New country, you know, and all that kind of thing."

The other protested that he liked nothing better than roughing it, and
how awfully jolly it was to run against Lamon