' and
catching hold of the wet man, he heaved him up again, and threw him by a
tremendous effort nearly a couple of yards out into the river. Down he
went out of sight in the deep water, and out he scrambled again, hardly
able to speak, when he was seized once more.

"`Third time never fails,' cried the fellow; but the other had had
enough of it, and owned he was beaten."

"But it was by an artful trick," cried Dyke.

"Of course it was, boy; but what I want you to notice was the spirit of
the thing, though it was only bragging; I kin dew it, and I will dew it,
if I try till to-morrow morning. We kin dew it, and we will dew
it, Dyke, even if we have to try till to-morrow morning--
to-morrow-come-never-morning."

"Oh!" groaned Dyke, sinking back upon the sand; "I am so hot and dry."

CHAPTER TWO.

DYKE ROUSES UP.

That was months before the opening of our story, when Dyke was making
his way in disgust toward the moist shade of the kopje, where, deep down
from cracks of the granite rock, the spring gurgled out.

Only a part ran for a few yards, and then disappeared in the sand,
without once reaching to where the sun blazed down.

Joe Emson shouted once more, but Dyke would not turn his head.

"Let him follow me if he wants me," muttered the boy. "He isn't half so
hot as I am."

Hot or not hot, the big fellow took off his broad Panama hat, gave his
head a vicious rub, replaced it, and turned to shout again. "Jack!
Ahoy, Jack!"

There was no reply to this, for Kaffir Jack lay behind the house in a
very hot place, fast asleep upon the sand, with his dark skin glistening
in the sunshine, the pigment within keeping off the blistering sunburn
which would have followed had the skin been white.

"I shall have to go after him," muttered Joe Emson; and, casting off the
feeling of languor which had impelled him to call others instead of
acting himself, he braced himself up, left the scorching iron house
behind, and trotted after Dyke, scaring a group of stupid-looking young
ostriches into a run behind the wire fence.

He knew where he would find his half-brother, and there he was, lying
upon his breast, with a cushion of green mossy growth beneath him, a
huge hanging rock overhead casting a broad shade, and the water gurgling
cool and clear so close that he had but to stretch out his hand to scoop
it up and drink from the palm.

Outside there was the scorching, blinding sunshine, however, and among
the roc