course. They dived into the mopani.
But, you know, they gave me the idea of being up to some devilment.
They didn't see me neither, and they had axes and assegais, but of
course it was none of my business if they were going to stick or hack
some other nigger, so I just rode on. A mile or so farther, just the
other side of a dry _sluit_, I saw a brand-new bush-buck spoor leading
into the mopani. I could do with some fresh meat just then--dead sick
of `bully'--so started to see if I could get near enough to him with the
.303. Well I didn't. I saw something else that drove the other clean
out of my head. On the opposite side of the _sluit_ from me a man
staggered out from the trees--a white man--and fell. `That's what those
two devils were up to, was it,' I thought. They'd assegaied him from
behind, and would be here in a minute to collect the plunder. You know,
Lamont, more than one white man has disappeared in that mopani belt, but
it's always been put down to thirst."

"Yes. Go on."

"Well, I just dropped down in the tambuti grass, and wormed forward to
where I could see over a bit o' rock. Then I drew a careful bead on the
exact spot where the nigger would stand to finish off the chap, and--by
the Lord!--there the nigger was, with an axe all ready in his fist. In
about a second he had skipped his own length in the air, and was
prancing about on the ground. He'd got it through the head, you see."

"Good! Did the other show up?"

"Didn't he? They showed up together. He cleared. But he was too late.
I got him too."

"Good old right and left! Well done, Peters! And the white man--who
was he, and was he badly damaged?"

"He wasn't damaged at all. But he'd have been dead of thirst before
night, even if the niggers had never sighted him. He's a Johnny Raw,
and he'd been drawing sort of figures of eight all about that mopani
patch for the last forty-eight hours. I didn't tell him there'd been
any shootin', or any niggers at all, and ain't going to. That sounds
like the carts," as the noise of wheels and whip cracking drew nearer
and nearer. "Yes; it is."

As the carts drew up, Lamont went back into the room for a moment to get
something he had left. When he turned, a tall figure stood in the
doorway framed against the darkness beyond.

"Lamont--isn't it?"

This was a fairly familiar method of address from a perfect stranger,
even in a land of generally prevailing free-and-easiness, and Lamon