hings over his wounds, fed him again, and
then sat down beside him with his own stubby hand resting against
Weldon's limp fingers. But, the next morning, Weldon rose, buttoned
and belted himself with elaborate care. Then, disregarding the
implorings of Carew and Paddy, who were terrified at the steady,
unseeing look in his gray eyes and at the tense lines about his
lips, he went to his captain and demanded his old position of
regimental rough rider.

He obtained it. In fact, it was given, not only freely, but with
joy. In all the regiment, no one else had been able to subdue such
wild mounts as Weldon. In former days, he had stopped at little. Now
he stopped at nothing. Horse-sickness, the scourge of South Africa,
was in the land; and the underfed, overworked mounts yielded to it
with pitiful ease. And, meanwhile, the need for horses was greater
than ever. Drive after drive through the country about Kroonstad was
bringing in the hostile Boers; but it was also bringing down the
horses. The call for new mounts was limitless; limitless, too, the
hours and the strength and the skill which Trooper Weldon put forth
to the supplying that call. He was utterly untiring; but he was
utterly reckless as well. Checked by no risk, sobered by no danger,
he rushed into risk and danger as rushes the man whose one wish is
to escape from a future of which he is in mortal, agonizing dread.

Carew said little; he watched much, and he meditated more. At first,
he hoped all things from the healthy, outdoor life. He watched
Weldon's muscles harden, saw his appetite return and welcomed with
happy anticipations all the signs of his returning rugged strength.
Then, as the time passed by, his anxiety came back upon him in full
measure. Long days in the saddle were followed by sleepless nights;
the shadow never came out of Weldon's eyes, the alertness never came
back into his step. Lean, gaunt as a greyhound, he went about his
work with a silent, dogged endurance which took no note of the other
life about him. For Trooper Weldon, his profession had dropped to a
dull, plodding routine of danger lapping close upon the heels of
danger. And still he spoke no word of the sorrow which had brought
him to this end.

And Carew, meanwhile, could not fail to note the increasing anxiety
with which Alice Mellen wrote of her cousin. From Alice's letters,
it appeared that Ethel, totally unnerved by the death of Captain
Frazer, had begged so piteously to be re