ong all her tears and sorrows, buoyed with future hopes, is
magnificent. Is it true, though? Is there that great secret, and does
she know it?"

Bill Vincent and Ralph Jenner, the two men who sat by the pleasant
camp-fire in the far South African interior, were old friends, now
engaged on a hunting expedition towards the Okavango.

Nowadays you may find, scattered about that vast mysterious land, many
scores of well-educated gentlemen knocking about in the veldt, often
dressed in clothes and engaged in work that a British navvy would scorn,
yet, barring a slight access of strong language, born of the wilderness,
still gentlemen at heart, and capable of returning to civilisation
without loss or deterioration. Here were two of them. The burnt arms
of the two men, and their sun-tanned faces and chests and rough beards,
their thorn-tattered breeches, and scarred old pigskin gaiters, showed
plainly that they had been long afield. And the numerous heads, horns,
and skins hanging in trees near, and bestowed about the wagon,
sufficiently indicated the main object of their trip.

Their big wagon stood near; beyond it, lying at their yokes, chewing
peacefully the cud, the great trek oxen rested. Six hunting ponies were
carefully fastened to the wagon-wheels in full light of the camp-fires.
Thirty yards away from the two Englishmen, gathered round a still bigger
fire, were the native "boys," some still chattering, some fast asleep.
Round about, the camp was engirt with bush and thin forest of
giraffe-acacia.

As usual it was a glorious night. Only those who have lain out month
after month in the vast silent veldt of the far interior can realise the
unspeakable majesty of the deep indigo void of the night heaven, sown
with a myriad flashing diamonds, that looms above the wanderer. The
airs were soft and sweet; the night was absolutely perfect. Almost
complete silence rested upon the wild. Bill took a fresh ember from the
fire and relit his pipe.

"My boy," he went on, "with all the roughs and tumbles of this life--and
it's a glorious life while it lasts, and where the game's plentiful
there's none better in this world--one can't help thinking sometimes
what it all means and where it ends. No man, I take it, can live with
Nature as we do, and look up at that sky,"--here Bill turned his gaze
upward, and with his short pipe indicated the glittering array of
stars,--"with its myriads of systems, and deny some great Powe