own loneliness.

In all truth, however, he was lonely. The week since he had rejoined
his squadron had dragged perceptibly. Captain Frazer was in Cape
Town; Carew was still in hospital at Johannesburg where, under the
eyes of Alice Mellen and her cousin, he was fast resuming his old
finical habits. Dingy and veldt-stained though he might be, Carew at
heart would always remain the exquisite. However, exquisite that he
was bound to be, he was even more the soldier, and his gay eyes had
clouded, as he had wrung Weldon's hand in parting.

"Lucky dog!" he said enviously. "I am off duty for two weeks more,
and you are going back to the thick of things. One must take it as
it comes; but I say, old man, don't forget me when the bullets begin
to pelt at you again."

And Weldon had been better than his promise. He had thought of
Carew, day and night, for the entire week, thought of him and missed
him acutely. Carew was an ideal comrade in that he never, under any
circumstances, took himself in earnest.

A leg which will carry a man on horseback is by no means fit for
football. Weldon, finished player that he was, found it tame work to
umpire a team whose sole idea of tactics was to get there in any way
that offered itself. Half an hour sufficed; then, appointing an
understudy, he walked away in search of Paddy. From the midst of a
torrent of instructions to his quartette of black subordinates,
Paddy's voice sang out a cheery greeting.

"Come along, little feller! Come and get something to eat. It's
hungry you ought to be, the day, after the way you've been walking
all over the country on horseback and an empty stomach. Try this, as
a sample of your dinner, and sit down by the edge of the fire,
whilst, and tell me how it tastes."

The iron spoon scraped lustily over the iron dixey. Then Weldon
returned them both with a low bow.

"Like yourself, Paddy, short and sweet."

Paddy brandished the spoon, weapon-wise.

"Short is it, you little Canuck! So is a pepperpot short; but it
holds a hell of a flavor. Leave Paddy a gun in his hand, and his
short legs will keep up with your long ones, when it's the firing
line that's before him."

"The old sing-song, Paddy. Give us something new."

"So will I, when I get my wishing. Till then, you'll hear it over
and over again. A man of my temper, little one, will never rest
content at a firing line that's all surrounded about with ten-quart
pots of boiling beef."

"Why don't you