ove, lying in a tuft of pink flowers. The daintiness of the
little glove brought home to Bough more forcibly than anything else, that
the Kid had become a lady.

For it was the girl, sure. No error about that little white face of hers,
with the pointed chin, and the topaz-coloured eyes, and the reddish hair.
The glass had brought her near enough to make that quite certain. He had
been too far off to hear a word, but he had made out what had been going
on very well. First, she had been giddying with the tall young English
swell, drawing him on while he seemed courting her, as all women knew how
to, and then the tall Sister of Mercy had come and rowed her; and she had
cried, thrown down there among the grass and flowers, exactly as if
somebody had beaten her with a sjambok to cure her of the G. D.'d
obstinacy that had to be thrashed out of women, if you would have them get
to heel when you chose it, or come at your call when you chose again.

Suppose he chose again. When a man with brains in his holy head once set
them to work, there were few things he could not do. He could scare others
off his property, for certain. He could exercise upon the girl herself the
unlimited power of Fear. He must lie doggo because of the Doctor. It was a
thundering queer chance the Doctor turning up in this place. And as one of
the bosses, helping to run the show, and powerful enough to pay off old
scores, if he should chance to recognise in the densely bearded face of
the man from Diamond Town the features of the Principal Witness in the
once-famous Old Bailey Criminal Case: "The Crown _v._ Saxham."

Bough would lie low, and watch, and wait, and then spring, as the
tarantula springs. He had cleverly blurred all trails leading back to the
tavern on the veld, and he knew enough of girls and women to believe that
this girl had kept secret what had happened there. He would pick up with
her, anyway, and offer to marry her and make an honest girl of her. If she
had a snivelling fancy for the dandy swell who had made love to her and
kissed her, he would threaten to tell the fellow the truth unless she gave
him up. Or he would blow on her to the nuns she lived with, and they would
have nothing more to do with her.

Voor den donder! suppose they knew already? The plan wanted careful
working out. A false step, and Gueldersdorp might become unhealthy for the
man who had brought the letter from Diamond Town to oblige Mrs. Casey.

Suppose the spoor t