irst, Frazer permitted himself a moment of acute uneasiness.
It had been in a spirit of unmitigated joy that Frazer had met Ethel
Dent in Cape Town, on the morning of New Year's day. In London he
had known the girl just well enough to admire her intensely, not
well enough, however, to have found out that she had any permanent
connection with South Africa. His joy had lasted until the hour of
his calling upon her, three days later; then it had received a
sudden check. Ethel had been as cordial as ever; nevertheless, her
talk had been full of the young Canadian whom he had met in the
drive. Frazer was intensely human. After a year of separation he
would have preferred to bound the talk by the experiences of their
two selves.

As a natural consequence, he had developed a strong prejudice
against Weldon; but Weldon, all unconsciously, had done much to
remove that prejudice. Not every man could manage a crazy, bucking
broncho in any such fashion as that; fewer still could come out of
the scrimmage, unhurt, to bow to a young woman with a cordiality
quite untinged with boyish bravado. That day at Maitland, Frazer had
registered his mental approval of the long-legged, lean Canadian
with his keen gray eyes and his wrists of bronze. He had registered
a second note of approval, that first night at Piquetberg Road, when
Weldon, with no unnecessary words, had contrived to impress upon the
mind of his captain that he was to be included in the guard to cross
the river. Totally obedient and respectful, Weldon nevertheless had
given the impression of a man who intended to win his own way.
Moreover, the direction of that way appeared to be straight towards
the front.

Meanwhile, peacefully unconscious of this diagnosis, Weldon was
sitting on the river bank, prosaically occupied in scooping out the
remaining taste left in an almost-empty jam tin. Beside him, Carew
was similarly occupied. Two more jam tins were between them and,
exactly opposite the pair of jam tins, there squatted a burly
Kaffir, young, alert and crowned with a thatch of hair which by
rights should have sprouted from the back of a sable pig. His mouth
was slightly open, and now and then his tongue licked out, like the
tongue of an eager dog. Aside from his hair, his costume consisted
of one black sock worn in lieu of muffler and a worn pair of khaki
trousers.

Behind him, the river caught the sunset light and turned it to a
sheet of flowing copper; beyond stretched t