e he scrambled over and flopped into the trench.
Once more the electric torch was flashed, and revealed to the eyes of
the onlookers an indescribably dirty, lean, middle-aged man with a
bloody head, and scarcely a rag of shirt on his back. The said man,
seeing friendly faces around him, grinned cheerfully.

'That was a rough trek, friends,' he said; 'I want to see your general
pretty quick, for I've got a present for him.'

He was taken to an officer in a dug-out, who addressed him in French,
which he did not understand. But the sight of Stumm's plan worked
wonders. After that he was fairly bundled down communication trenches
and then over swampy fields to a farm among trees. There he found
staff officers, who looked at him and looked at his map, and then put
him on a horse and hurried him eastwards. At last he came to a big
ruined house, and was taken into a room which seemed to be full of maps
and generals.

The conclusion must be told in Peter's words.

'There was a big man sitting at a table drinking coffee, and when I saw
him my heart jumped out of my skin. For it was the man I hunted with
on the Pungwe in '98--him whom the Kaffirs called "Buck's Horn",
because of his long curled moustaches. He was a prince even then, and
now he is a very great general. When I saw him, I ran forward and
gripped his hand and cried, "_Hoe gat het, Mynheer_?" and he knew me
and shouted in Dutch, "Damn, if it isn't old Peter Pienaar!" Then he
gave me coffee and ham and good bread, and he looked at my map.

'"What is this?" he cried, growing red in the face.

'"It is the staff-map of one Stumm, a German _skellum_ who commands in
yon city," I said.

'He looked at it close and read the markings, and then he read the
other paper which you gave me, Dick. And then he flung up his arms and
laughed. He took a loaf and tossed it into the air so that it fell on
the head of another general. He spoke to them in their own tongue, and
they, too, laughed, and one or two ran out as if on some errand. I
have never seen such merrymaking. They were clever men, and knew the
worth of what you gave me.

'Then he got to his feet and hugged me, all dirty as I was, and kissed
me on both cheeks.

'"Before God, Peter," he said, "you're the mightiest hunter since
Nimrod. You've often found me game, but never game so big as this!"'

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The Little Hill

It was a wise man who said that the biggest kind of courage was