with me, old fellow," said Drew, smiling.

"Humph! Why didn't you?"

"Same reason that you didn't bring out some worms in your kit. I say,
are you loaded?"

"Of course. You asked me before."

Drew Lennox said no more, but glanced up-stream and down-stream, after
starting his bait once again upon its swim. Then, after watching the
rings uncoil till the line was tight, he swept the edge of the opposite
bank some fifty yards away, carefully searching the clumps of trees and
bushes, partly in search of a lurking enemy or spying Kaffir, taught now
by experience always to be on the alert, and partly in the faint hope of
catching a glimpse of something in the shape of game such as would prove
welcome in the famine that he and his comrades were experiencing.

But, as he might have known in connection with game, their coming would
have been quite sufficient to scare off the keen eared and eyed wild
creatures; and he glanced down at his line again, thinking in a rather
hopeless way that he and his friend might just as well have stayed in
camp at the laager they had fortified with so much care.

His next act was to open the flap of his belt holster and carefully
withdraw the revolver which now rarely left his side. After a short
examination of the mechanism, this came in for a good rub and polish
from the handkerchief before it was replaced.

"Nearly had one," cried his companion, after a snatch at the line he
held.

"Didn't get a bite, did you?"

"Bite? A regular pull; but I was a bit too late. Why don't you attend
to your fishing instead of fiddle-faddling with that revolver? Pull up
your line."

Drew Lennox smiled doubtingly as he drew the leather cover of the
holster over the stud before stooping to take hold of the line at his
feet.

"I believe that was all fancy, Master Bobby," he said. "If there have
been any fish here, the crocodiles have cleared them out, or the Boers
have netted them. It will be dry biscuit for us again to-night, or--My
word!"

"Got one?" cried Dickenson, excited in turn, for his brother officer's
manner had suddenly changed from resigned indifference to eager action,
as he felt the violent jerk given to his line by something or other that
he had hooked.

"Got one? Yes; a monster. Look how he pulls."

"Oh, be careful; be careful old chap!" cried Dickenson wildly, and he
left the stone upon which he was standing to hurry to his friend's side.
"That's a fifteen or twenty poun