Mark. "Wake up."

"Eh? Is it lions?"

"No, no. Speak lower, or you will alarm the camp."

"Well, what do you want? You are always making me wake up when I have
just dropped off to sleep. What is it?"

"Hush! I have just been out to talk to father."

"Have you?" said Dean, half asleep again. "Wha'd he say?"

"Never mind what he said," whispered Mark, with his face close to his
cousin's ear.

"I don't."

"No, you don't, of course, you sleepy head! Wake up."

Mark seized his cousin by the shoulders, raised his head, and let it
fall down again with a bump on the blanket-covered box lid.

"Oh, you brute!" began Dean, wide awake now.

"Well, I didn't mean to do it so hard; but do you want to lie here with
wild things coming at you?"

"Eh? No," cried Dean, half rising up. "What do you mean?"

"I mean I went out to talk to father--"

"Well, yes, you said so before," cried the boy pettishly; and he made as
if to lay his head down again.

"No, you don't!" cried Mark, checking him. "Listen."

"I--can't--lis'--I am so slee--"

"Do you want to be eaten up by wild beasts?"

"Eh? No," cried Dean, fully awake now.

"I came back to the waggon, and was just getting in when something came
from behind you."

"What was it? Not a big snake?"

"No, no. I thought it was a leopard, but I don't think so now. I only
just had a glimpse of it as it jumped out and dropped down at the end
there, and scuttled off."

"Oh!" cried Dean excitedly. "A leopard?"

"No," whispered Mark. "It was one of those baboons."

"What baboons? I haven't seen any baboons."

"No, no; but one of those that they say live in packs amongst the
kopjes."

"Ugh!" ejaculated Dean. "I believe they bite horribly."

"Well, did you feel him bite?"

"Of course not! If I had it would have woke me up."

"Oh, I don't know," said his cousin, laughing. "Well, at all events one
of them must have got in here as soon as I had gone, and been making
itself comfortable in my place."

"I say, I don't like that," said Dean. "You shouldn't have gone."

"Well, I didn't want to," said Mark softly. "But I am glad we are not
going to stay here, for though we did not see any, this must be one of
the kopjes where the baboons live. I say, do you feel sleepy now?"

"No, not a bit."

"Nor do I. Let's lie still and talk. That will rest us, even if we
don't sleep, and, as father says, we want to be fresh to-morrow."

"All right," said Dea