lannel shirt, breeches
and gaiters, with a face as brown as a Kaffir's, wandering over the
South African veldt. During these expeditions, by the way,
Baden-Powell's wardrobe came to ignominious grief, and under the
tattered breeches, the stained shirt, and the split boots, he was a
mere network of holes. The ankles of his socks remained true to the
end, but the rest of them, in B.-P.'s euphemistic phrase, were most
delicate lace. The one drawback to the tub in the river, leaving out
the chance of a stray crocodile, was the difficulty he experienced in
getting back into these delicate open-work socks, and the only way of
surmounting this difficulty was by bathing--socks and all!

The marches, too, had their intervals of fighting, and the little
patrol was frequently so in touch with the enemy that Tommy Atkins and
Master Matabele could exchange compliments. "Sleep well to-night," the
grinning savages would shout from the hills; "to-morrow we will have
your livers fried for breakfast!" And the compliments became sterner
whenever the Matabele recognised in the little force of whites the
dread "Wolf that never Sleeps." "Wolf! Wolf!" they shrieked with
savage ferocity, and if Baden-Powell had the nerves of some of us he
must have had many a bad night after hearing that yell, and marking
the gleaming eyes and the frothing lips that twitched with lust for
his destruction.

Then there was the bitterest work of all. The closing of suffering
eyes that had grown so strangely dear during the hardships of such
work as this; the saying of farewells to the men who had raced by
one's side with Death at their heels for how many hard weeks. Of one
of these Baden-Powell writes in his diary: "His death is to me like
the snatching away of a pleasing book half read." And solemn as the
funeral service ever is, one fancies how awe-inspiring, how poignant
its impressiveness, when in the dark, "among the gleams of camp-fires
and lanterns, with a storm of thunder and lightning gathering round,"
a few fighting Englishmen heard its message over the body of a
fellow-soldier.

Baden-Powell's description of the day's work at this time gives one a
good idea of the life of a patrol. This is what he wrote in his diary
for his mother's eyes: "Our usual daily march goes thus: Reveille and
stand to arms at 4.30, when Orion's belt is overhead. (The natives
call this Ingolobu, the pig, the three big stars being three pigs, and
the three little ones being