irth. Dollond had an
especially youthful appearance. Franks was older. He had joined the
force later in life. He and Dollond, who had only very recently before
his disappearance been promoted, were chums.

Some months later in the same year, when Troopers George Langley and
Hiram Whitson also applied for ten days' leave of absence,--likewise to
proceed to Pietermaritzburg,--the leave was granted; but the officer in
charge of the detachment laughingly remarked that he hoped they were not
going to follow Dollond and Franks.

Now, neither Langley nor Whitson had the remotest idea of visiting
Pietermaritzburg. It is necessary, of course, for the reader to know
where they did intend going to, and how the intention arose; but before
doing this we must deal with some antecedent circumstances.

Langley was most certainly the most boyish-looking man in the force. He
had a perfectly smooth face, ruddy complexion, and fair hair. He was of
middle height, and was rather inclined to stoutness. He was so fond of
talking that his comrades nicknamed him "Magpie." A colonist by birth,
he could speak the Kaffir language like a native.

Whitson was a sallow-faced, spare-built man of short stature, with
dark-brown beard and hair, and piercing black eyes. His age was about
forty. He had a wiry and terrier-like appearance. A "down-East" Yankee,
he had spent some years in Mexico, and then drifted to South Africa
during the war period, which, it will be remembered, lasted from 1877 to
1882. He had served in the Zulu war as a non-commissioned officer in one
of the irregular cavalry corps, with some credit. The fact of his being
a man of extremely few words was enough to account for the friendship
which existed between him and the garrulous Langley. Whitson was known
to be a dead shot with the revolver.

This is how they came to apply for leave: One day Langley was strolling
about just outside the lines, looking for somebody to talk to, when he
noticed an apparently very old native man sitting on an ant-heap and
regarding him somewhat intently. This old native had been several times
seen in the vicinity of the camp, but he never seemed to speak to any
one, and he looked so harmless that the police did not even trouble to
ask him for the written pass which all natives are obliged by law to
carry when they move about the country. The old man saluted Langley
and asked in his own language for a pipeful of tobacco. Langley always
carried some loo