citizens of the woods,
and a crash of twigs may mean anything from a buck to a rhinoceros.
There is a hectic on the face of nature.

The trader of Last Notch went homewards to his store through such a
maze of urgent life, and panted in the heat. He had been out to shoot
guinea-fowl, had shot none and expended all his cartridges, and his
gun, glinting in the strong light as he walked, was heavy to his
shoulder and hot to his hand. His mood was one of patient protest,
for the sun found him an easy prey and he had yet some miles to go.
Where another man would have said: "Damn the heat," and done with it,
John Mills, the trader, tasted the word on his lips, forbore to slip
it, and counted it to himself for virtue. He set a large value on
restraint, which, in view of his strength and resolute daring, was
perhaps not wholly false. He was a large man, more noticeable for a
sturdy solidness of proportion than for height, and his strong face
was won to pleasantness by a brown beard, which he wore "navy fash."
His store, five big huts above the kloof known as Last Notch, was at
the heart of a large Kafir population; and the natives,
agriculturists by convention and warriors between whiles, patronized
him very liberally. The Englishmen and Portuguese of the country
held him in favor, and he enjoyed that esteem which a strong quiet
man, who has proved himself to have reserves of violence, commonly
wins from turbulent neighbors.

He was trying for a short cut home, and purposed to wade the Revue
river wherever he should strike it. Over the low bush about him he
could see his hills yet a couple of hours off, and he sighed for
thirst and extreme discomfort. No one, he knew, lived thereabouts--no
one, at least, who was likely to have whisky at hand, though, for the
matter of that, he would have welcomed a hut and a draught of Kafir
itywala. His surprise was the greater, then, when there appeared from
the growth beside his path as white a man as himself, a tall,
somewhat ragged figure--but rags tell no news at all in Manicaland--
who wore a large black moustache and smiled affably on him.

He noted that the stranger was a fine figure of a man, tall and slim,
with clear dark eyes and tanned face, and he saw, too, that he wore a
heavy Webley on his right hip. The newcomer continued to smile as
Mills scanned him over, and waited for the trader to speak first.

"Hullo!" said Mills at length.

"'Ullo!" replied the stranger, smiling st