and, as was its wont,
cheerful.

The click of billiard balls from either inn gave further tone to the
somewhat scant air of civilisation.

Lounging in a corner of the Criterion bar were two men equipped in veldt
dress of cord breeches and coats, pigskin gaiters, brown boots, spurs,
flannel shirts, and broad-brimmed felt hats. They were youngish men--
both on the better side of thirty--and looked bronzed, full of health,
and hard as nails. Both had come out to the country with Methuen's
Horse, and, after serving in Warren's expedition, had drifted into the
Bechuanaland Border Police, from which they had some time since retired.
The elder, darker and taller, Hume Wheler, after a fairly successful
public school and university career, and a short and briefless period at
the Bar, had found the active and open-air life of the South African
interior far more to his liking than two years of weary expectancy in
gloomy chambers. In reality a man of action, the languid and somewhat
cynical air which he affected in times of quiet greatly belied him. His
friend, Joe Granton, shorter and more strongly knit than his fellow,
wore habitually a far more cheerful aspect. His broad, bright
countenance, clear blue eyes, fair hair and moustache, and transparent
openness, combined to render him quickly welcome wherever he appeared.
Joe had migrated to South Africa after five years' experience of a City
office. London-bred though he was, his yearnings were irresistibly
athletic; and, after mastering the early troubles of horsemanship, he
had settled down to veldt life, with its roughs and tumbles, with a zest
that never faded.

These two men had been fast friends for years, and were now engaged in
an enterprise which, although nominally enwrapped in some air of
mystery, was a pretty open secret in Vryburg. The rage for
concession-hunting was just now in full blast throughout South Africa.
The two comrades, in partnership with two or three other
Bechuanalanders, were just on the eve of an expedition into the far
recesses of the Kalahari Desert, with the object of securing a
concession from a native chief over a vast tract of country in that
waterless and unknown wilderness.

As the two adventurers smoked their pipes and now and again refreshed
themselves from long tumblers of whisky and soda, their eyes wandered
with some impatience towards the open doorway. Their expectancy was at
length rewarded. A short, strong figure of a man