the parade ground. "They ride like tailors
squatting on their press-boards, and they salute like a parrot
scratching his head with his hind paw. A soldier is like a poet,
born, not made."

In leisurely fashion, Weldon stretched himself at full length and
drew out a slender pipe.

"Paddy, if you keep on, I'll fire a kopje at you," he threatened.

Paddy disdained the threat.

"Glory be, the kopjes be riveted down on the bottom end of them! But
it's the truth I'm telling. Half of these men is afraid of their
lives, when they're on a horse."

"The horses of South Africa are divided into two classes," Carew
observed sententiously; "the American ones that merely buck, and the
cross-eyed Argentine ones that grin at you like a Cheshire cat,
after they have done it. Both are bad for the nerves. Still, I'd
rather be respectfully bucked, than bucked and then laughed at,
after the catastrophe occurs. Paddy, my knife has been splitting
open its handle. What's to be done about it?"

"Let's see."

Bending forward, Carew drew the black-handled knife and fork from
the coils of his putties. In the orderly surroundings of Maitland
Camp, there was no especial need of his adopting the storage methods
of the trek; nevertheless, he had taken to the new idea with prompt
enthusiasm. Up to that time, it had never occurred to him to bandage
his legs with khaki, and then convert the bandages into a species of
portable sideboard.

"Paddy," Weldon remonstrated; "don't stop to play with his knife. No
matter if it is cracked. So is he, for the matter of that. Go and
tell your menial troop to remember to put a little beef in the soup,
this noon. I am tired of sipping warm water and onion juice."

"What time is it, then?"

"My watch says eleven; but my stomach declares it is half-past two.
Trot along, there's a good Paddy. And don't forget to tie a pink
string to my piece of meat, when you give it to the orderly. Else I
may not know it's the best one." With a reluctant yawn and a glance
upward towards the sun, Paddy scrambled to his feet and brushed
himself off with the outspread palms of his stubby hands. Then he
turned to the men behind him.

"Stick your fork back in your putties, Mr. Carew, and I'll send you
a knife to go with it. As long as Paddy manages the cooking tent,
the cracked knives shall go to the dunderheads. The best isn't any
too good for them as rides like you and Mr. Weldon, and drinks no
rum at all."

Weldon eyed him