he kopje.

As soon as suspicion was firmly fixed upon the party of non-combatant
Boers who had departed upon their mission to obtain fresh supplies, one
of the first orders issued by the colonel was for a patrol of mounted
men to go in pursuit and, if possible, bring them back.

"There is not much chance of overtaking them," he said to the officers
present; "but with a couple of teams of slow-going oxen they cannot make
their own pace. Then this is the last time I'll trust a Boer."

"The worst of it is," said the major, "that we have let them carry off
those two spans of bullocks. Tut, tut, tut! Forty of them; tough as
leather, of course, but toothsome when you have nothing else."

"Toothsome!" said Captain Roby, laughing. "A capital term, for the poor
teeth of those who tried to eat them would have to work pretty hard--
eh,--Dickenson?"

"Better than nothing," said the young lieutenant--a decision with which
all agreed.

That day passed off without further attack from the enemy, who seemed to
have drawn off to a distance; and as night fell the colonel became very
anxious about the patrol, which had not returned. Dickenson, who had
the credit of being the longest-sighted man in the regiment, had spent
the day on the highest point of the kopje, armed with a powerful
telescope, and from his point of vantage, where he could command the
country in that wonderfully clear atmosphere for miles round, had swept
every bit of plain, and searched bush and pile of granite again and
again, till the darkness of evening began to fill up the bush like a
flood of something fluid. When he could do no more he left the crew of
the gun and began to descend by what he considered the nearest way to
headquarters, and soon found it the longest, for he had delayed his
return too long.

"Hang it all!" he muttered. "What a pile of shin-breaking rocks it is!
I've a jolly good mind to go back and take the regular path; seems so
stupid, though, now."

In this spirit he persevered, wandering in and out among the piled-up
blocks, all of which seemed in the darkness to be exactly alike, often
making him think that he was going over the same ground again and again.
But he was still descending, for when he climbed up the next suitable
place to try and get a view of the lights of the camp he could see them
beneath him and certainly nearer than when he started.

"Shall manage it somehow," he muttered; "but, hang it! how hungry I am!
There,