ow,
While quick at the call his merry men all
Came tripping along in a row!

He half-hummed, half-sang the old lines in a pleasant baritone voice,
and then listened.

"Don't see many _merry men_ tripping--poor, hungry beggars! Blow again,
Drew, old man. Why don't they stop firing?"

Drew blew again, and, to the intense satisfaction of both, the whistle
was answered from among the trees above.

"Ahoy there! Where are you?"

"Here! here!" shouted the young officers together.

"Cease firing!" came now in a familiar voice, and the shots died out.

"It's Roby," said Drew eagerly.

"Never liked him so well before," said Dickenson, laughing. "Ahoy!
We're coming up."

"Oh, there you are!" came from above, and a good, manly, sun-tanned face
was thrust over the edge of the cliff. "All right?"

"Yes! Yes!" was the reply.

"That's better than I expected, lads," cried the officer. "Does one
good. I thought we were avenging your death. Well,"--the speaker's
face expanded into a broad grin--"it's getting on towards dinner-time.
What have you caught?"

"Tartars!" growled Drew shortly.

"Yes," said Dickenson; "a regular mess."

The Kopje Garrison--by George Manville Fenn

CHAPTER THREE.

ON THE QUI VIVE.

"So it seems," said the officer above. "But hullo, you! You're
wounded."

"Pooh! stuff!" said Dickenson shortly; "bit picked out of my ear."

"But,"--began the head of the rescue party.

"Let it be," said Dickenson snappishly as he pressed his hand to the
injured place. "If I don't howl about it, I'm sure you needn't."

"Very well, old fellow, I will not. Ugh! what's that down there--that
fellow dead?"

The officer leaned out as far as he could so as to get a good look at
the motionless figure at the foot of the cliff.

Drew glanced at the figure too, and nodded his head.

"Who shot him--you or Dickenson?"

"Neither of us," said Drew gravely. "It was the work of one of your
fellows; he fell from up there. But what about the party who crossed by
the ford?"

"Oh, we've accounted for them. Cut them off from the ford and
surrounded them. Fifteen, and bagged the lot, horses and all."

"You were a precious long time coming, though, Roby," grumbled
Dickenson. "We seem to have been firing here all day."

"That's gratitude!" said the officer. "We came as quickly as we could.
Nice job, too, to advance on a gang well under cover and double covered
by the strong body across the rive