u bought is all right."

"I really did not like taking him, for I already had one; and it looked
almost like robbery, giving him two pounds for it, and the saddle."

"Others have done as well," the officer laughed. "One of the brigade
staff bought a horse for a pound from Burleigh, who had given forty for
it at Cairo. There was no help for it. They could not take horses down.
Besides, it is not their loss, after all. The newspapers can afford to
pay for them. They must have been coining money, of late."

"That reconciles me," Gregory laughed. "I did not think of the
correspondents' expenses being paid by the papers."

"I don't know anything about their arrangements, but it stands to
reason that it must be so, in a campaign like this. In an ordinary war,
a man can calculate what his outlay might be; but on an expedition of
this kind, no one could foretell what expenses he might have to incur.

"Besides, the Sirdar has saved the newspapers an enormous expenditure.
The correspondents have been rigidly kept down to messages of a few
hundred words; whereas, if they had had their own way, they would have
sent down columns. Of course, the correspondents grumbled, but I have
no doubt their employers were very well pleased, and the newspapers
must have saved thousands of pounds, by this restriction."

"You are back sooner than I expected," General Hunter said, when
Gregory went in and reported his arrival. "It is scarce a week since
you left."

"Just a week, sir. Everything went smoothly, and I was but three or
four hours at Hebbeh."

"And did you succeed in your search?"

"Yes, sir. I most fortunately found a man who had hidden a pocketbook
he had taken from the body of one of the white men who were murdered
there. There was nothing in it but old papers and, when Brackenbury's
expedition approached, he had hidden it away; and did not give it a
thought, until I enquired if he knew of any papers, and other things,
connected with those on board the steamer. He at once took me to the
place where he had hidden it, under a great stone, and it turned out to
be the notebook and journals of my father; who was, as I thought
possible, the white man who had arrived at Khartoum, a short time
before the place was captured by the Dervishes, and who had gone down
in the steamer that carried Colonel Stewart."

"Well, Hilliard," the General said, kindly, "even the certain knowledge
of his death is better than the fear that he might be