unconcerned as if
he were leading the horse home from grazing peacefully away upon the
veldt.

I too began to feel more at my ease, for we had gone on so far that
there was a strong hope that we might be successful, unless there should
prove to be another body lower down the pass. The next minute, though,
I felt convinced this could not be the case, for if another body were
lower down they would have been firing; or, on second thoughts, I
concluded they must have fired first, since the Boers would never
conclude that a body of men was leaving their territory.

The firing kept on for a few minutes longer, and then suddenly ceased;
while as we proceeded, with Joeboy leading on as fast as Sandho could
walk, we could hear voices behind us; men shouting and answering one
another, though it was impossible to hear what was said; but it seemed
as if they were asking one another what the firing was about, and
whether any one had seen the attacking party. Of course this is only
what I surmised; but it satisfied me at the time, and I could not help
laughing at the waste of powder and lead occasioned by the harmless
incident of a spark being struck from a stone by a horse's foot.

We were soon, however, satisfied about one thing: that we were not being
pursued; for there was no more firing, and the voices soon died out as
we went steadily on along a rough winding track pretty free from stones.

We must have been carefully making our way onward for about an hour,
when suddenly we walked right into a mist, which made our progress more
difficult, for the great blocks of stone seemed to loom up suddenly
right in our way; and in avoiding these we somehow missed the track,
good proof of which was given me by Joeboy's action; for he suddenly
checked the horse, stooped down, felt about, and ended by lifting a
stone as big as my head and casting it from him.

"Why did you do that, Joeboy?" I said.

"Boss wait," was the answer, and I waited, to hear the stone strike
directly after, and then keep on striking, as it went on by leaps and
bounds, making me shudder slightly as I grasped the fact that Joeboy had
checked the horse suddenly just on the brink of some precipice, down
which the stone went rolling and plunging till the sounds of its blows
died away along with the echoes it raised.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

OUT OF THE FRYING-PAN.

"What a narrow escape, Joeboy!" I whispered.

"Um!" he said. "No good go that way. Sandho brea