Brian, as he muttered to
himself--

"Some white people are like women--always asking things they ought to
know." But out loud he said: "Why should I deceive you? I have nothing
to gain by the oxen being stolen. They are my master's--that is,
_mine_; for they were under my care."

Dumela was to leave us here, but before he started upon his homeward
way, he said to Brian, "_Inkose_, you will find what you seek, but
whether you will obtain possession of it, I know not, for the people
over yonder are numerous and fierce and reckless, and they love not the
whites--wherefore keep your eyes open."

"That's the dickey part of the whole situation," said Brian, as we moved
forward. "If we come to blows and had a free hand, why we'd probably be
all right. As it is, it's like fighting with one hand tied behind you.
There's no actual war on--not yet--though if things go on much longer
like this there soon will be. If we start shooting to kill--or even
shooting at all--ten to one it means a Circuit Court trial; but if they
cut all our throats, not one of them'll be any the worse for it--for
even if the right men were ever dropped upon, it would be ruled that
they acted in self-defence, and that armed parties of farmers had no
right raiding into native locations."

"Quite right, Matterson," assented Revell. "They'd jaw about taking the
law into our own hands, and what did the Colony keep up an expensive
Police Force for, and so on. Fat lot you'd see of your oxen by the time
you put that machinery to work. Why, the Kafirs'd have scoffed the
whole span long before and started out to rake in more."

Now, all this was no more than the bare truth. The unrest and bold and
predatory propensities of our turbulent neighbours of late had been the
cause of a growing uneasiness on the frontier, and more than one armed
collision between settlers and the natives had occurred--arising out of
just such provocation as had brought us hither. One indeed, quite
recently, had been something of a _cause celebre_ in that to the frantic
indignation of the presiding judge a frontier jury had unhesitatingly
and obstinately refused to convict certain individuals of their own
class and colour who had used fire-arms with fatal effect, but beyond
all doubt in defence of their own lives.

"We may find ourselves in a rotten tight place, or we may not,"
pronounced Brian, when we had discussed the whole position fore and aft.
"If we do we must use ju