r, she was in bright spirits, and
to-day had laid herself out to be thoroughly companionable, and, to do
her justice, had well succeeded; and more than once, when the pace had
been too great, or the ground too rough, or a dark, haunting terror of
her saddle turning had smote her, she had manfully repressed any word or
look which might be construed into an appeal for consideration or aid.
She had even been successful beyond her hopes, for Roden, silently
observant, had not suffered this to escape him, though manifesting no
sign thereof. So the trio, as they sat there under the cliff, lunching
upon sandwiches in true sportsmanlike fashion, with a vast panorama of
mountain and plain, craggy, turret-like summit, and bold, sweeping,
grassy slope, spread out beneath and around for fifty miles on either
hand, and the fresh, bracing breeze of seven thousand feet above
sea-level tempering the golden and glowing sunshine which enveloped
them, felt on excellent terms with each other and all the world.

"The plan now," said Suffield, when they had taken it easy long enough,
"will be to separate and go right round the _berg_. It is lying under
the _krantz_ we shall find the bucks, if anywhere."

"Where does my part come in in that little scheme, Charlie?" said Mona.
"Who am I to inflict myself upon?"

"Upon me, of course," said Roden.

She shot a rapid glance at him as though to see if he were in earnest,
and her heart beat quick. This time she was sure that no dubiousness
lurked beneath his tone.

"Just as you like," she rejoined; for her, quite subduedly. Then Piet,
the after-rider, having received his instructions--viz., to start off
homeward with the two bucks already slain--they separated accordingly.

CHAPTER NINE.

"LOVE THAT IS FIRST AND LAST..."

"Now you will have to take care of me," began Mona, after some minutes
of silence, as they started slowly to ride round beneath the cliff.

"A heavy responsibility for any one man during a whole hour or more."

"You have not found it so hitherto?"

"Oh, then there were two of us. We took the risk between us. Hallo!"
he broke off, "that's a fine specimen!"

She followed his upward glance. A huge bird of prey had shot out from
the cliff overhead and was circling in bold, powerful sweeps, uttering a
loud, raucous scream.

"As good a specimen of a _dasje-vanger_ as I ever saw," went on Roden,
still gazing upward. "Now, I wonder if a Snider bullet would blow i