o
cause to rebel, though. Between Paddy and Kruger Bobs, you stand in
for all the tidbits that are going."

With a mock sigh, Weldon pointed backward over his shoulder.

"But unfortunately Kruger Bobs and The Nig are left behind in the
shadow of Naauwpoort's dreary heights. By the way, Carew, does it
ever strike you that these Boers make a lot more fuss over their
spelling than they do over their pronunciation? At home, we'd get as
good results out of dozens less letters."

"They make as good use of their extra letters as they do of their
extra bullets," Carew returned tranquilly. "They've been sniping,
all the morning long, and they have only hit a man and a quarter
now."

"Which was the quarter?"

Turning, Carew displayed a jagged hole in his left sleeve. Weldon
laughed unfeelingly.

"Can't you keep out of range, you old target? If there's a bullet
coming your way, it's bound to graze you."

"This is only the fourth. Only one of those really meant business.
Oh, hang it! There they go again!" he burst out, as a distant line
of rocks crackled explosively and, a moment later, a random bullet
opened up the side of his shoe.

With the swift change of occupation to which the past four months
had accustomed them, they were soon in the saddle and galloping off
across the rolling veldt. Before them, a pair of guns were pounding
away at the rocky line and its flanking bushes, and beyond, over the
crest of the next ridge, scores of thick-set, burly figures were
racing in search of shelter, with a fragment of the Scottish Horse
in hot pursuit.

Neck and neck in the vanguard raced Weldon and Carew, with Captain
Frazer's huge khaki-colored horse hard on their heels. To Weldon,
the next hour was one of fierce excitement and pleasure. The shriek
of the shells, long since left behind, the flying figures before
them, the rise and fall of his own gray little broncho as she
stretched herself to measure the interminable veldt, the khaki-colored
desert, dotted with huge black rocks and shimmering with the
heat waves which rose above it towards the midday sun: his pulses
tingled and his head throbbed with the glorious rush of it all.

And then the slouching figures were met by other slouching figures,
and reluctantly Weldon drew in his horse, as the halt was ordered.
Only madness would prolong the chase against such heavy odds. Mere
sanity demanded that the troopers should delay until the column came
up. The action must wait,