gs
connecting the ostrich-pens were thrown open to give the great birds as
much limit for feeding themselves as he could. Then he fetched water in
abundance for the house, and loaded and laid ready the three guns and
the rifles, with plenty of cartridges by their sides, but more from a
hope that the sight of his armament would have the effect of frightening
Kaffirs away when seen, than from any thought of using them as lethal
weapons, and destroying life.

Then he was face to face with the difficulty about the wagon. These
stores ought not to be left where they were, and he felt that he was too
much worn out to attempt to carry them into the rough-boarded room that
served as store. He was too much exhausted, and the rest of that day he
felt belonged to his patient.

But a thought struck him, and fetching up a yoke of the oxen which were
browsing contentedly a half-mile away, Dyke hitched them on to the
dissel-boom, and, after some difficulty, managed to get the wagon drawn
close up to the fence, and within a few yards of the door.

"Duke will be there, and I should hear any one who came," he said to
himself, and once more set the oxen free to go lowing back to their poor
pasture with the rest of the team, which he had had hard work to keep
from following him at the first.

And now, tired out with his exertions at a time when the hot sun was
blazing on high, and beginning to feel a bit dispirited, he entered the
house again, to be cast down as low as ever, for once more Emson was
suffering terribly from the fit, which seemed to come on as nearly as
could be at the same time daily. Dyke knew that he ought to have been
prepared for it, but he was not, for it again took him by surprise, and
the medicine which he administered, and his brother took automatically,
seemed to have no effect whatever.

He bathed and applied evaporating bandages to the poor fellow's temples,
but the fever had the mastery, and kept it for hours, while Dyke could
at last do nothing but hold the burning hand in his, with despair coming
over him, just as the gloom succeeded the setting of the sun.

Then, just as the boy was thinking that no fit had been so long as this,
and that Emson was growing far weaker, the heat and alternate shivering
suddenly ceased, and with a deep sigh he dropped off to sleep.

Dyke sat watching for a time, and then, finding that Emson was getting
cooler and cooler, and the sleep apparently more natural and right,