rgotten the mystery I
had set out to track in the excitement of a new life and my sordid
contest with Japp. But now this espionage brought back my old
preoccupation. I was being watched because some person or persons
thought that I was dangerous. My suspicions fastened on Japp, but I
soon gave up that clue. It was my presence in the store that was a
danger to him, not my wanderings about the countryside. It might be
that he had engineered the espionage so as to drive me out of the place
in sheer annoyance; but I flattered myself that Mr Japp knew me too
well to imagine that such a game was likely to succeed.

The mischief was that I could not make out who the trackers were. I
had visited all the surrounding locations, and was on good enough terms
with all the chiefs. There was 'Mpefu, a dingy old fellow who had
spent a good deal of his life in a Boer gaol before the war. There was
a mission station at his place, and his people seemed to me to be well
behaved and prosperous. Majinje was a chieftainess, a little girl whom
nobody was allowed to see. Her location was a miserable affair, and
her tribe was yearly shrinking in numbers. Then there was Magata
farther north among the mountains. He had no quarrel with me, for he
used to give me a meal when I went out hunting in that direction; and
once he turned out a hundred of his young men, and I had a great battue
of wild dogs. Sikitola, the biggest of all, lived some distance out in
the flats. I knew less about him; but if his men were the trackers,
they must have spent most of their days a weary way from their kraal.
The Kaffirs in the huts at Blaauwildebeestefontein were mostly
Christians, and quiet, decent fellows, who farmed their little gardens,
and certainly preferred me to Japp. I thought at one time of riding
into Pietersdorp to consult the Native Commissioner. But I discovered
that the old man, who knew the country, was gone, and that his
successor was a young fellow from Rhodesia, who knew nothing about
anything. Besides, the natives round Blaauwildebeestefontein were well
conducted, and received few official visitations. Now and then a
couple of Zulu policemen passed in pursuit of some minor malefactor,
and the collector came for the hut-tax; but we gave the Government
little work, and they did not trouble their heads about us.

As I have said, the clues I had brought out with me to
Blaauwildebeestefontein began to occupy my mind again; and the more