pen space.

Quite a crowd had collected to see him off and wave him an adieu, and
many a message was entrusted to him, and many a "So long, Jack, old
horse!" followed him. Soon he was at the outskirts, where he passed the
pickets, and pushed on, searching the ground in every direction with
eyes which were now as sharp as a hawk's. Once he almost stumbled on a
Boer advanced picket lying on a small kopje, but a crouching figure and
a big hat dimly silhouetted against the star-lit sky warned him, and in
an instant he and his pony were lying prone upon the veldt.

"Wie gaat daar?" came in hoarse tones across to him, but he lay like a
log, without answering; nor did he take any notice when a rifle flashed
and a bullet buzzed some yards above him.

"I'll lie where I am," he thought. "They did not catch sight of me, but
probably heard some suspicious sound. I'll give them half an hour to
clear away, and if they are not gone by then I'll make a bolt for it."

But there was no necessity for this, for suddenly the long naval
smooth-bore gun now used in Mafeking belched out its home-made shell,
and the picket lying in front of him rose to their feet and looked back
at their own camp, where, a moment later, a dull, muttering roar and a
brilliant spurt of flame showed that the missile had exploded.

In an instant Jack was on his pony again, and, turning slightly to the
left, galloped away at his fastest pace. All that night he kept on
steadily, and at daybreak hid up in a patch of mimosa bush.

By the following morning he was nearing the Modder River, and was on the
point of concealing himself again when he caught sight of a figure some
three hundred yards in front of him.

In a moment his pony was lying on the ground, and Jack was crawling,
rifle in hand, towards the stranger.

"I could pick him off from here," he thought, lying flat upon his
stomach and taking a steady aim at the man's head, "but he doesn't seem
to have noticed me, and I hate the idea of shooting a poor fellow
without giving him a chance of making a fight for it. Besides, for all
I know he may be an Englishman. Perhaps it is Riley. He left Mafeking
with despatches a week before I got there, but he was new to the game,
and might easily have come to grief. But otherwise he ought to have
reached our camp long before this."

Jack lowered his rifle, and, removing his hat from his head, looked long
and carefully at the stranger through his glasses. To