he encircling landscape. "Every flat-top
hill is an exact copy of every other flat-top hill, and they all are
more or less hideous to behold. My one source of rejoicement lies in
the fact that the pattern was worn out down here, instead of being
sent up to make our mountains by. I hate a bobtail horse; but it's
nothing so bad as these everlasting bobtail hills. And, by Jove,
there comes another dust devil!"

Far away across the veldt, a tiny spurt of dust twirled up into the
air and came spinning towards them like a huge, translucent top.
Gaining momentum as it spun along and picking up more dust as it
advanced, it came whirling onward, rising high and higher until it
swept down on them, a huge, khaki-colored, balloon-like mass. It
caught them in its whirl, ground its stinging, sifting particles
into their clothing, their skin and even into their shut eyes. Then
it passed them by, and went spinning away in its course. Carew swore
softly, as he wiped the dust from his lashes.

"Beastly things! There really ought to be a society formed for the
suppression of dust devils in their infancy. What do you suppose
becomes of the things, Weldon? There's no stopping them, once they
get under way; and, at their rate of growth, they could bury a
township in their old age."

"Granted they could find one to bury," Weldon returned. "Meanwhile,
observe your bath tub."

Carew glanced down at the dust-filled buckets at his feet.

"Oh, hang!" he said concisely. "And I was about to prink."

"One would think you needed it now more than ever," Weldon answered,
as he shook himself free from the thickest of the dust. "What's the
use of trying to keep clean, Carew?"

"Precious little. I used to talk about I 'the un-tubbed.' Now I
mean, merely for the sake of example, to shave twice in the month,
and swab myself off between whiles. It's not for comfort, I assure
you. It's my belief that an occasional bath is worse than none. It
merely stirs up memories of the buried past, and aspirations that
can't be fulfilled. However--" And Carew, the quondam exquisite,
pulled off his socks and shirt, punched them down into one of the
buckets and then did his British best to wash himself in the other.

His lamentations rose again, however, when he put on his
time-stained uniform once more.

"I now understand why Brother Boer sleeps in his clothes," he
observed grimly. "Cleanliness, may be next to godliness; but it is
mighty near the edge of the dia