on! Let's have a good drink of water and a
feed, and by that time we ought to be ready to start."

"We ought to cross the Vaal before morning," said West.

"I doubt it," was the reply, "for it will be rather a job, as we shall
find the enemy about there. If we get across to-morrow night we shall
have done well."

"But we shall never get to Mafeking like this."

"It's going to be a harder task than you thought for when you
volunteered so lightly, my dear boy; but we've undertaken to do it, and
do it we will. It isn't a work of hours nor days. It may take us
weeks. Come along! I'm hungry, and so are you."

"But tell me," said West, "how long have you been awake?"

"Not above a quarter of an hour. We must have sleep and rest as well as
food. When we've had the last we shall be ready for anything through
the night."

And so it proved as they rode on properly refreshed, meeting with no
adventure, but being startled by the barking roars of lions twice during
the night, which came to an end as they reached a very similar kopje
offering just such accommodation as they had met with on the previous
morning.

"Hah!" said Ingleborough. "Just enough prog left for a rough breakfast.
To-morrow we shall have to begin travelling by day, so as to pay a
visit to some farm, for we can't do as the nags do, eat grass when they
can get it and nibble green shoots when they can't. Now then, my dear
Noll, the orders for to-day are: sleep beneath this projecting shelf."

"But I say," said West, a minute or so later, "is your rifle charged?
You were wiping the barrels as we rode along."

There was no reply, for Ingleborough was fast asleep, and West soon
followed his example.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

AFTER A LAPSE.

Oliver West was sleeping soundly that night from sheer fatigue; but all
the same his slumber was not pleasant, for though his body was resting
his brain was hard at work.

Before an hour had passed he was conscious of being cold, and in a
dreamy way he felt that he ought to do what under the circumstances was
impossible: that is to say, put more clothes over him, or, failing them,
as he had no more, roll himself over and over in the blanket that he had
brought strapped to his saddle-bow and only thrown over him when he lay
down to sleep. But his body was so steeped in sleep that he did not
stir, and suffered from the freezing air of the night--so tremendous a
change from the torrid heat of mid-day out on the