, and then
go back and try him again?"

"Say!" answered Will, stopping and turning to face us. "What d'you
take me for? I like my meals. I like three squares a day, and
tobacco, and now and then a drink. But if this was the Sahara, and
that man had the only eats and drinks, I'd starve."

"Telling him the truth wouldn't be accepting favors from him,"
counseled Fred.

"I wouldn't tell him the time!"

That attitude--and Will insisted that all the officials in the land
would prove alike--limited our choice, for unless we were to allay
official suspicion it would be hopeless to get away northward.
Southward into German East seemed the only way to go; there was
apparently no law against travel in that direction. On our way to the
hotel we passed Coutlass, striding along smirking to himself, headed
toward the office from which we had just come.

"I'll bet you," said Will, "he's off to get an ammunition permit, and
permission to go where he damned well pleases! I'll bet he gets both!
This government's the limit!"

We laughed, but Will proved more than half right. Coutlass did get
ammunition. Lady Saffren Waldon's influence was already strong enough
for that. He did not ask for leave to go anywhere for the simple
reason that his movements depended wholly on ours--a fact that
developed later.

At the hotel there was a pleasant surprise for us. A squarely built,
snub-nosed native, not very dark skinned but very ugly--his right ear
slit, and almost all of his left ear missing--without any of the brass
or iron wire ornaments that most of the natives of the land affect, but
possessed of a Harris tweed shooting jacket and, of all unexpected
things, boots that he carried slung by the laces from his neck-waited
for us, squatting with a note addressed to Fred tied in a cleft stick.

It does not pay to wax enthusiastic over natives, even when one
suspects they bring good news. We took the letter from him, told him
to wait, and went on in. Once out of the man's hearing Fred tore the
letter open and read it aloud to us.

"Herewith my Kazimoto," it ran. "Be good to him. It
occurred to me that you might not care after all to linger in
Nairobi, and it seemed hardly fair to keep the boy from getting a good
job simply because he could make me comfortable for the
remainder of a week. So, as there happened to be ae special train
going up I begged leave for him to ride in the caboose. He is
a splendid gun-bearer. He n