erbage, brushing off the dew and here
and there breaking down twigs.

"Ah!" he suddenly exclaimed. "Here's poor old Peter's trail. See that?
He must have crawled along here. But I don't see the spoor of any of
my beasts--yes, I do," he cried, a few yards farther. "They went along
here in a drove. Then we had better turn off and follow them up. I
don't suppose they will have gone so very far. Say, Mr Mark, sir; do
you know why I wanted you two to come with me?"

"To help find the bullocks," said Dean sharply.

The man chuckled as he trotted on along the marks made by the animals.

"No," he said. "It's all plain enough. I didn't want any help. Why,
you two could find them if you went far enough. I wanted to get summut
off my mind."

"Something off your mind?" said Mark.

"Yes, sir; I don't like to speak out and get another fellow into
trouble, but I felt as you two ought to know, and then you could talk it
over between yourselves and settle whether you ought to tell the boss."

"Tell my father?" said Mark.

"Yes, sir, or the doctor; and perhaps he will think the poor fellow's
got it bad enough without facing more trouble."

"What do you mean, Buck?" cried Dean.

"What I was going to say," said Mark.

"Well, gen'lemen, only this; we oughtn't to have had a surprise like
that. It was Peter Dance's watch, warn't it?"

"Yes," cried Mark excitedly, as strange thoughts began to hurry through
his brain.

"Well, sir, he as good as said as he was sitting down with his shooter
across his knees."

"Yes, yes," cried Dean.

"Well, sir, why didn't he shoot?"

"He was too much startled," said Dean. "Poor fellow! I should have
been quite as scared, with a lion creeping right up to me like that."

"I suppose so, sir. But I don't quite believe that tale. I never 'eerd
of a lion creeping up to look at a man who was sitting by a fire."

"No," said Mark, in a whisper, as if to himself, and he trotted on the
newly made trampled trail of the oxen.

"Why should you doubt it?" said Dean sharply. "I have known Peter Dance
ever since I was a quite a little fellow. He can be very disagreeable
sometimes, but I never found him out in a lie."

"No, sir?" said Buck. "Well, I think you have found him out now."

"What do you mean?" cried Dean. "Here, Mark, why don't you say
something?"

"Because I'm listening," said his cousin drily. "Tell him what you
think, Buck."

"Yes, sir; I will, sir. Well, I think-