to him, wagging their tails, and whining
for notice. Mechanically his hand passed over each glossy head, and
still there was silence between the two men. Then the Commandant shut
down the window and turned into the room again.

"Well, Greenoak, if any other man was bound on this errand, I should say
it would be useless. But yourself--"

"I shall feel the pulse of the locations anyway, and can gauge pretty
accurately whether the farmers who are still sticking to their places
ought to leave. I'll have a good talk with Matanzima."

"Not Sandili?"

"Sheer waste of time. He'd be too drunk."

"You may find a difficulty in getting away. In any case, you'll be
shadowed at every step."

Greenoak laughed drily as he toyed with the spaniels' ears.

"I don't want to brag," he said, "but we've known each other a long
time. Did you ever know me `shadowed' to any purpose by any one I
didn't intend should shadow me?"

"No, I can't say I did. I don't believe any one ever did."

"Well, it happened once--not long ago either. And who the dickens do
you think succeeded in doing it?"

"Who?"

"Our young friend, Dick Selmes. No more, no less." And he told the
other, briefly, of his enterprise in Slaang Kloof.

"Well, that doesn't count, for of course he guessed where you were bound
for, and the distance and surroundings were so trifling that there was
no opportunity of throwing him off the scent. Here, of course, it's
different. You're a wonderful fellow, Greenoak, but I don't know why
your glass has been standing empty so long. Here. Fill up."

Several glasses already used, and a large but more than half-emptied
decanter on the table--item a good deal of tobacco ash, pointed to the
fact that some of the Police officers and an outside friend or two had
been spending the evening with the Commandant. The latter now charged
his glass, and pushed the excellent Boer brandy--whisky was hardly known
on the frontier in those days--over to Greenoak.

"We'll drink success, at any rate," he said, "to the `secret service'
department." Then, after a pause, "Upon my word, Greenoak, I wish you'd
throw up this undertaking."

Greenoak, for him, looked somewhat surprised. In all the years of their
acquaintance he had never known the Commandant in an expostulatory vein.
He was habitually the most matter-of-fact and laconic of men. Could it
be that he was ageing?

"Oh, I'm getting rusty here, and spoiling for the chance of