n
follow the scouts with a glass."

"Don't come?" cried Dickenson sharply. "Well, I like that! Here's
another one touched by the sun. Old Roby is not to have the monopoly of
getting into a fantigue."

"Nonsense! I'm not out of temper," said Lennox.

"Not out of temper? Well, upon my word! But I shall come all the same.
I would now if it were ten times as hot."

"Very well," said Lennox, drawing his breath hard so as to command his
temper, for he felt really ruffled now by the heat and his comrade's way
of talking.

They climbed slowly on, step for step, till, as they zigzagged up into a
good position which displayed the sun-bathed landscape shimmering in the
heat, Lennox caught a glimpse of one of the scouting parties in the
distance, and was about to draw his companion's attention to it when
Dickenson suddenly caught at his arm and pointed to a glowing patch of
the rock in the full blaze of the sun.

"Look," he said. "Big snake."

"Nonsense!" said Lennox angrily; "there are no snakes up here."

Their eyes met the next instant with so meaning a look in them that both
burst out laughing, Dickenson holding out his hand, which was taken at
once.

"I forgive old Roby," he said.

"So do I," said Lennox frankly. "Heat and hunger do upset a man's
temper. See our fellows out there?"

He pointed in the direction where he had seen the mounted figures,
feeling for his glass the while.

"Not our men," said Dickenson, following his example, and together they
produced their glasses.

"Oh yes," said Lennox. "I am certain it was they."

"And I'm as certain it was not," cried Dickenson.

Their eyes met again; but this time they felt too serious to laugh, and
were silent for some moments.

Dickenson then said frankly:

"Look here, old chap, there's something wrong with us. We've got the
new complaint--the Robitis; and we'd better not argue about anything, or
we shall have a fight. My temper feels as if it had got all the skin
off."

"And I'm as irritable as Roby was this morning. Never mind. Can you
make out the mounted men now?"

"No," said Dickenson after a pause. "Can you?"

"No. They're gone behind that patch of forest. There," he continued,
closing his glass, "let's get up to the top and sit in the men's
shelter; there'll be a bit of air up there."

He proved to be right, for a pleasant breeze, comparatively cool, was
blowing on the other side of the mountain and tempering the glare of t