s?"

"Rub my wrists, Joeboy," I said, stripping up my sleeves and showing him
their bruised state and my swollen arms.

He understood why they were so, and took first one and then the other in
his big soft grey palms, to mould and knead and rub them with untiring
patience for long enough, the effect being pleasurable in the extreme.

But I checked him when he was in the midst of it, and pointed to my leg.

"Boer tie up leg?" he said wonderingly.

I explained what was wrong, and he knelt before me, carefully removing
my laced-up boot, and giving me sickening pain as he drew off my coarse
home-knitted stocking, to lay bare the wrenched and swollen foot and
ankle.

"Um!" he said. "Boss Val come to water."

He lifted me to the edge of the stream as easily as if I had been a
child, and when I sat down, carefully bathed the joint for fully
half-an-hour, dried it by pouring sand over it again and again, and then
as tenderly as a woman replaced stocking and boot, which latter he laced
very loosely.

"Boss Val go one leg when off Sandho."

"Yes, Joeboy," I said; "but it will soon get better."

"Um!" he said, and he looked at me inquiringly, as if for orders.

"Now we must be off, Joeboy, before the Boers hunt me out."

"Um!" he said, in token of assent; and upon my calling Sandho to my side
Joeboy helped me to mount, securing the satchel to my saddle in
obedience to my orders; and, making for Echo Nek, we went steadily on,
my intention being to get through the pass and some distance on the
other side towards the Natal border before dark.

"We shall know the road better there, Joeboy," I said after we had been
walking some time; "it all seems strange to me here."

"Joeboy know," he said.

"What! the way about here?" I said, in surprise. "When did you come?"

"Long while," he replied. "Lost bullock. Come here."

"Oh!"--then I remembered. "Of course. You were gone a fortnight."

"Um!" said Joeboy.

"And my father thought you had run away, and that we should never see
you again."

"How Joeboy run away? Bullock no run. Run other way."

"Yes," I said, laughing; "they are always ready to go in the wrong
direction. Do you know"--I was going to say something about the rising
of one of the rivers up in the mountains somewhere near, but I stopped
short, for my companion suddenly darted to Sandho's head and pressed him
sidewise towards a pile of rocks which offered plenty of shelter from
anything in front