n again.

"No: couldn't catch,"--_snore_.

"Here! Hi! Little one. Wake up!" cried Emson.

"Yes; all right!--What's the matter?"

"Matter? why, you're asleep, you stupid fellow: a lion might have come
upon you in that state."

"Lion? Come upon? Did--did you speak to me?" said Dyke thickly.

"Speak to you? of course. Why, you foolish, careless fellow, what was
the matter? Afraid to stay by the game?"

Dyke looked at him drowsily, striving to catch all that had been said,
but only partially grasping the meaning.

"Don't know--what you mean," he said thickly.

"I mean it was very cowardly of you to forsake your charge, boy," said
Emson sternly. "It's vital for us to save that meat, and I trusted you
to watch it. Now you've come away, and it will be horribly mauled by
the jackals; perhaps we shall find half a hundred vultures feeding upon
it when we get there. Hang it, Dyke! you might have stayed till I came
back."

Dyke was too much confused to make any reply. Utterly exhausted as he
had been, his deep sleep seemed to still hold him, and he sat gazing
vacantly at his brother, who added in a tone full of contempt:

"There, don't stare at me in that idiotic way. Come along; let's try
and save something. Look sharp! One of us must ride on, or we shall
not find it before it's dark."

Dyke rode beside him in silence, for Breezy eagerly joined his stable
companion, and in a short time they were up to, and then passed Jack
with his plodding oxen, which were drawing a rough sledge, something
similar to that which a farmer at home uses for the conveyance of a
plough from field to field.

The angry look soon passed away from Emson's face, and he turned to
Dyke.

"There, look up, old chap," he said; "don't pull a phiz like that."

Dyke was still half stupefied by sleep, but he had grasped his brother's
former words, and these were uppermost, rankling still in his mind as he
said heavily:

"You talked about the jackals and vultures, Joe."

"Yes, yes; but I was in a pet, little un--vexed at the idea of losing
our stock of good fresh meat. That's all over now, so say no more about
it. Began to think I was never coming, didn't you? Well, I was long."
Emson might just as well have held his tongue, for nothing he now said
was grasped by Dyke, who could think of nothing else but the former
words, and he repeated himself:

"You talked about the jackals and vultures, Joe."

"Yes, yes, I did; but never