normally philosophical
and easy-going master.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

THE FIRST CAMP.

"Any alligators in this river, Fanning?"

"Plenty. They won't interfere with us, though."

Splash! splash! The horses plunged on, deeper and deeper into the wide
drift. Soon the water was up to the saddle-girths.

Renshaw, leading the way--and a pack-horse--tucked up his feet over the
saddle behind, an example his companion was not slow to follow. An
expanse of yellow, turgid water, at least a hundred and fifty yards
wide, lay before them. Below, a labyrinth of green eyots picturesquely
studded the surface of the stream. Above, the river flowed round an
abrupt bend of red rock wall, sweeping silently and majestically down to
the drift which our two adventurers were fording. In front, a high
craggy ridge, sheering up in a steep slope, dotted with aloes and a
sparse growth of mimosa bush. Behind, a similar ridge, down whose
rugged face the two had spent the best part of the afternoon finding a
practicable path.

And now it was evening. The setting sun dipped nearer and nearer to the
same rocky heights in the west, shedding a scarlet glow upon the smooth
surface of the great river, tingeing with fiery effulgence many a bold
krantz whose smooth walls rose sheer to the heavens. An indescribably
wild and desolate spot, redeemed from absolute savagery by the soft
cooing of innumerable doves flitting among the fringe of trees which
skirted the bank of the stream.

The drift, though wide, was shallow, and the water came no higher than
the saddle-girths. A few minutes more of splashing, and they emerged
upon a hard, firm sand-bank.

"The river's low now, and has been some time," said Renshaw, looking
around. "The time before last I crossed this way, I lost a good horse
in a quicksand a little lower down. I dare say it's a firm bank now,
like this one."

"By Jove! did you really?" said Sellon. "Were you alone, then?" His
respect for the other had already gone up fifty per cent. They were in
a seldom-trodden wilderness now, a forbidding, horrible-looking
solitude, at that, shut in as it was by great, grim mountain walls, and
the eternal silence of a desert world. Yet this man, whom he, Sellon,
in all the superiority of his old-world knowledge, had held in light
account, was perfectly at home here. There was no doubt as to which was
the better man, here, at any rate.

"Yes; I was alone," answered Renshaw. "I've