. We
catch him now!' So they put nice back-fat and tongue in the cache, and
hide close by. After dark the wolves come. When the man-wolf see that
good food he run to it and eat. Then the people run in and catch him
with ropes and take him to a lodge. Inside in the light of the fire they
see who it is. They say: 'This is the man who was lost!'

"Man say: 'No. I not lost. My wives try to kill me.' And he tell them
how it was. He say: 'The wolves take pity on me or I die there.'

"When the people hear this they angry at those bad women, and they tell
the man to do something about it.

"Man say: 'You say well. I give them to the Bull-Band, the Punishers of
Wrong.'

"After that night those two women were never seen again."

Mary Moosa, when one of her stories went well, with the true instinct of
a story-teller could seldom be persuaded to follow it with another,
fearing an anti-climax perhaps. She turned in under her little tent, and
soon thereafter trumpeted to the world that she slept.

Stonor and Clare were left together with self-conscious, downcast eyes.
All day they had longed for this moment, and now that it had come they
were full of dread. Their moods had changed; chaffing was for sunny
mornings on the river; in the exquisite, brooding dusk they hungered for
each other. Yet both still told themselves that the secret was safe from
the other. Finally Clare with elaborate yawns bade Stonor good-night and
disappeared under her tent.

An instinct that he could not have analysed told him she would be out
again. Half-way down the bank in a little grassy hollow he made a nest
for her with his blankets. When she did appear over the top of the bank
she surveyed these preparations with a touch of haughty surprise. She
had a cup in her hand.

"Were you going to spend the night here?" she asked.

"No," he said, much confused.

"What is this for, then?"

"I just hoped that you might come out and sit for a while."

"What reason had you to think that?"

"No reason. I just hoped it."

"Oh! I thought you were in bed. I just came out to get a drink."

Stonor, considerably dashed, took the cup and brought her water from the
river. She sipped it and threw the rest away. He begged her to sit down.

She sat in a tentative sort of way, and declined to be wrapped up. "I
can only stay a minute."

"Have you a pressing engagement?" he asked aggrievedly.

"One must sleep some time," she said rebukingly.

Stonor, totally