ast.

The birds had been plucked and spread upon the embers, split open,
spatchcock fashion, and when ready afforded our travellers a toothsome
breakfast. Then they saddled up.

"We shan't do our thirty miles to-day," said Renshaw, as they rode
along. "We started too late. But that won't greatly matter. We have
plenty of time, and it's better to keep the horses fresh than to rush
them through."

"So it is. But, I say, this place is like the Umtirara Valley, minus
the bush and the greenness."

It was. As they rode on, the desolate wildness of the defile increased.
Rocky slopes sparsely grown with stunted bush, the usual cliff
formation cleaving the sky-line. Boulders large and small studded the
valley, lying like so many houses on the hillsides or piled up in
unpleasantly obstructive profusion, right along the line of march. Of
animal life there was little enough. Here and there an armour-plated
tortoise stalking solemnly among the stones, or a large bird of prey
circling overhead--but of game, no sign. As the sun mounted higher and
higher, pouring his rays into the defile as though focussed through a
burning glass, the heat tried Sellon severely.

"This is awful," he growled, for the fiftieth time, mopping his steaming
face. "Is it going to be like this all the way?"

"It may be. But we shall have to do most of our moving about at night.
We can take it easy now and off-saddle, and trek on again towards
sundown. Until we actually begin our search, I know the ground by
heart. Come now, Sellon, you must keep up your determination. It's
beastly trying, I know, for an unseasoned chap; but think of the end."

"I believe I'll get a sunstroke first," was the dejected reply, as the
speaker flung himself wearily on the ground.

"Not a bit of it. Here, have a drop of liquor--but you'd better take it
weak, or it'll do more harm than good." And getting out a pannikin
Renshaw poured in a little of the contents of his flask, judiciously
diluting it from the water-skin slung across the pack-horse.

This water-skin, by the way, was an ingenious contrivance of his own,
and of which he was not a little proud. Like its Eastern prototype--
upon which it was modelled--it consisted of the dressed skin of a
good-sized Angora kid--one of the legs serving for the spout.

"Not a bad dodge, eh?" acquiesced Renshaw, in response to his
companion's remark. "The water has a leathery taste, I admit, but it's
better than n