nife and a sharpened stick for a fork. "Why, it's
worth all the sitting-down meals in the world!"

"Isn't it?" rejoined her father. "Here, Undhlawafa. Here is something
to send it down with." And he produced a large flask of "square face"
gin, and poured a goodly measure into the cup. The old Zulu's face lit
up.

"_Nkose_! It is good, _impela_!" and he drained it at two gulps.

"The worst of it is," went on Verna, "the record pair of koodoo horns
can't be ticketed with my name. Because this is a poach, you know."

"Oh, but it can--and shall. Denham has undertaken to indemnify me in
any risks I run in procuring him specimens. This'll stand us in for a
hundred pounds at least. Why, the horns are a record! And I shall
stick out that he placards on them a notice, that they were shot by
you--shot fair and clean, by God! as I've never seen anything better
shot."

"All right, dear," answered the girl. "Then some fine day the record
leaks out that we have been shooting koodoo on a Government game
preserve without a permit. What then?"

"What then? Why, I'm fined--say a hundred pounds. Denham makes that
good, and--makes good the other hundred for the horns. But the chances
are a thousand to one against the news ever reaching the proper quarter
over here, for all purposes of prosecution, I mean. You see, it doesn't
specify _where_ the thing was shot."

"No; there's something in that," said Verna. "But I'd like to figure,
if only in a rich man's private museum, as having shot the record koodoo
in the world." And she laughed merrily.

The Zulus were busy cutting up the great antelope, which task they
accomplished in a surprisingly short space of time, chattering and
laughing among themselves as they devoured various portions of the
tid-bits raw. In process of the talk Undhlawafa contrived to say
something to Ben Halse--something "dark." That worthy nodded.

"Stay here, Verna. I shall be back directly," he said.

She looked at him for a moment full in the moonlight. Some instinct was
upon her. Once before, the same instinct had moved her to intervene in
a certain transaction of his, to intervene right at the critical moment,
with the result of saving him from a disastrous fate as the outcome of
what that transaction would have involved. The thing had hung in the
balance; but her instinct had rung true, her intervention had availed.
He had been saved. Now that same instinct was upon her again. Sh