n overhead
by towering tree-tops, the horses showed no sign of weariness or
distress.

"I don't much like bringing them in here," Verna said. "There's tsetse
at times. But it has turned so much cooler that I think it's safe."

They were riding in single file, she leading. It was a wonderful road.
Tall trees shutting out the light; ropes of monkey trailers dangling to
the ground, thick undergrowth and long grass making that peculiar
translucent hue such as you may see by taking a deep dive into a
tropical sea. Not many bird voices, but here and there one, for birds
prefer the outskirts of inhabited lands, and the remotest depths of
forest are not to their taste.

"Shall we lunch here, Verna?" said Denham, as they came out upon a small
open space where a runnel of water flowed into a pool. In the course of
their close companionship he had got into the way of calling her by her
name. It had come naturally to both of them somehow. She, for her
part, had, of late, never called him anything at all.

"Yes; it's as good a place as any, and, I'll tell you now, it's where
the record head was shot. I never would bring you here before, you
know, but--here we are."

And she flashed a merry laugh at him.

"By Jove! that's capital. Now we'll `reconstitute' the whole
performance, as the French police do in a murder case. Now, show me.
Where was the koodoo, and where were you?"

"First of all, about the horses," she said; "we must keep them hitched
up, we can't knee-halter them because it's swampy the other side of the
_vlei_, and once they got into that, why--good-night. We should have to
walk home and break the news as gently as we could to father."

They loosened the girths only, having first allowed the animals to
drink; and then Verna, in as few words as possible, showed him the
positions of the whole affair.

"It's nothing to brag about," she ended up. "I'll own to one bit of
conceit about it, though. I told father that it seemed a thousand
pities my name shouldn't figure as having shot the record koodoo head of
the world, even if it was only in a private collection. He said that it
could--however, we've settled all that now."

"Well, he was wrong, for, on second thoughts, it can't."

"What's the joke?" she said, fairly mystified.

"None at all, it's dead serious," speaking quickly. "I shan't label it
as shot by Verna Halse, but by Verna Denham. Those are my conditions.
How do they strike you--darlin