'd trust my
life to that fellow any day in the week."

"Trust your life to him, would you?"

"Yes. Rather."

"M--m!"

"Yes, I would. You don't know the chap, Crosse. I do. See?"

"'M--yes."

The while, John Ames, having turned his horse over to his boy, entered
his office. There was not much to do that day, as it happened, so after
spending half an hour looking over some papers, he locked up for the
day, and adjourned to the hut which served him for sitting and dining
room combined, in which we have already seen him.

He threw himself into a chair and lighted a pipe. There was an absent,
thoughtful look in his eyes, which had been there ever since he found
himself alone; wherefore it is hardly surprising that in lieu of seeking
solace in literature, he should have sat, to all outward appearances,
doing nothing. In reality, he was thinking--thinking hard and deeply.

A month had gone by since his unexpected and most unwelcome recall; but
unwelcome as it had been, he could not quarrel with it on the ground of
its superfluity. Times had been lively since his return--more than
lively--but not in an exhilarating sense. The rinderpest had taken firm
root in the land, and was in a fair way of clearing it of horned cattle
from end to end. Not at domestic cattle did it stay its ravages either.
The wild game went down before its fell breath; every variety of
stately and beautiful antelope, formerly preserved with judicious care
beneath the rule of the barbarian king, underwent decimation. But it
was in the mowing down of the cattle that the serious side of the
scourge came, because, apart from the actual loss to the white settlers,
the enforced destruction of the native stock rendered the savages both
desperate and dangerous. Already rumours of rising were in the air.
The sullen, brooding demeanour exhibited by Madula's people was but a
sample of the whole.

To the perilous side of the position, as regarded himself individually,
John Ames was not blind. He was far too experienced for that. And his
position was full of peril. Apart from a rising, he was marked out as
the actual agent in executing the most hateful law ever forced upon a
conquered people. His was the hand by which actually perished its
animal wealth. Every bullock or heifer shot down sent a pang of fierce
vindictiveness through more than one savage heart. In blind, barbaric
reasoning, what more plausible than that to destroy the instrume