the throng, one sturdy little gray back move more and more
slowly, turn slightly, then weave its patient way in and out between
its frightened companions until, free from the press of the crowd,
it stood alone on the hail-lashed plain. Ten minutes later, Weldon
felt a soft, wet muzzle poking its way between his tight-locked
arms. The rest was simple. It amounted to riding back to the column
to give warning of the enemy who rode close in the rear, to
summoning Kruger Bobs and The Nig, and then, without stopping for a
saddle, to go galloping away to the sky-line to round up the
stampeded herd. The first dash of hail over, the rain fell fast upon
them; but, above its roar, they could hear the steady firing of the
pom pom behind them and the crackle of musketry mingled with the
heavier fire.

Four o'clock had brought the stampede and the storm. Seven o'clock
brought Weldon and Kruger Bobs, drenched to the skin, back into a
demoralized camp. Nine o'clock found Weldon still in the saddle, his
teeth chattering, his brown cheeks ablaze and his eyes hot with
fever, while he waited for the pitching of his tattered tent. Then,
even before its soggy, torn folds were stretched and pegged into
position, he turned and rode off in search of a doctor.

"Sorry," he said briefly; "but I think I've a touch of fever. Can
you put me to bed somewhere?"

The next morning, he greeted Kruger Bobs by the name of a girl
cousin who had died, ten years before.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

For two weeks, the fever held Weldon in its grip. For two weeks, he
was prostrate, first with the halting column, then at the base
hospital at Kroonstad. The fever was never very high, nor was it
intermittent. It merely hung about him and ate away his strength.
For the time being, he was content to lie quiet and stare up at the
electric lights scattered through the tent and wonder about Ethel.
Now and then some sight in the hospital set him to thinking about
the Captain, wondering if he were happy in his new life of rest and
peace, he who had so often been in the thick of the fiercest fight.
Or he thought of Paddy, brave, merry little Irishman who, fighting
like an angry wolf, had died with a joke still hanging on his lips.
Then his mind went back again to Ethel.

In vain they urged him to sleep; in vain they gave him bromides. The
body was at rest; but the wheels of the brain whirred as busily as
ever, and as logically. No hint of delirium mingled with h