of
personification of self-respect. Now he was blue and demoralized.

'Have you caught my mule?' he panted anxiously.

'Have you stopped our man?' Trooper No. 1 asked him coldly, his
face set very hard.

'There's a lion in the way,' gasped Trooper No. 2, quoting
Scripture, whether he knew it or not. 'I got off my mule, I fired
two shots. Then my mule bolted.'

'And you bolted,' said No. 1 with a sneer. He took no further
notice of him, but called the Black Watch corporal and gave him
his orders. 'Take three men,' he said. 'Get to the drift. Run for
your lives. Leave the path and go through the bush if there's
really a lion.' The four Black Watch were off almost as soon as
he had spoken.

Trooper No. 2 began to explain matters at length to his senior.
But the latter did not suffer him at all gladly. Then it was that
I started down the drift road, asking No. 2's boy if he would
show me the place where they had seen the lion. I asked him if he
thought it was wounded. He answered me disdainfully. He showed me
how Trooper No. 2 shot the panic way the way to heaven.

Then we came in sight of the lion standing, haloed by the disc of
the moon. As I have told you, I tried to give No. 2 a chance to
wipe out his stain. I went back to fetch him; he was taking
things hardly, doubtless, and I ought to try and do him a good
turn. He came, but the lion did not stand still to await him. Why
was I so glad he escaped? I don't think it was only because I was
afraid. Yet glad I was. So we gave him up, and tramped back to
the kraal.

Soon after we were back one of the pursuers returned. He had seen
Carrot splash through the drift. He took his time and went at it
leisurely, I gathered, with his piccanin astride upon his
shoulders. On the other side a crowd of natives had received him
in triumph. They jeered at the police and shook their spears and
knobkerries. Carrot was safely across the border and among his
friends.

'It's a lost trip,' said No. 1, and looked No. 2 up and down, as
we sat by the camp fire. No. 2 looked injured and ashamed at one
and the same time. He was not a hero on principle, I should
think, and he had not risen to this occasion. Some people seem to
hold that Britishers are heroes on principle all along our
frontiers, and rise to all occasions. I can testify that this
is not the truth, for I know my own deficiencies. As to No. 2,
there is some sort of mitigating explanation of his conduct to
be yet recounted