n the squadron, Captain Frazer," Weldon was
explaining. "The blankets are quite dry. Roll yourself up, and you
will be warm in a few minutes."

Carew surveyed the transfer with merry, impartial eyes.

"Well, I like that," he said, when the Captain's yellow head was all
that was visible above the encircling cocoon. "I thought you said
that you preferred to catch cold from your own wetness, Weldon. I
was merely damp; this man is a sponge."

Before Weldon could answer, the yellow head turned, and the blue
eyes looked up into Carew's eyes laughingly.

"Merely one of the privileges of rank, Carew," the Captain observed
as dryly as if he had not risen from his warm bed to swim the river
and walk a mile in the darkness and the downpour, in order to see
how the new boys were getting on.

CHAPTER SIX

Captain Leo Frazer, age thirty and an Englishman, had a trick of
looking Fate between the eyes with those black-fringed blue eyes of
his, of accepting its gifts with gratitude, its occasional knocks
with cheery optimism. At Rugby he had ultimately been captain of the
school; at Oxford he had been of equal prowess in rowing and
football. Since taking his degree, he had been a successful doctor
in the intervals of time allowed him by his membership in one of the
crack regiments at home. He had never seriously contemplated the
possibility of active service; but Colenso had been too strong a
pull upon him. Leaving some scores of sorrowing patients to bemoan
him as already dead, he had promptly shipped for Cape Town. The year
of grace nineteen hundred had found him on the scene at most of its
exciting events. Where Fate refused to take him, he asserted his
strong hand and took Fate, until that weary lady was forced to go
hopping about the map of South Africa with the agility of a sand
flea.

In battle, Frazer was always in the thickest spatter of bullets,
where he bowed himself to the inevitable and lay prone, though with
his face turned to one side to give free passage to the chaff which
carried his comrades through so many grim hours. In the presence of
danger, his humor never failed him. In those sorrowful hours which
followed the cessation of firing, no man was in greater demand than
he. Many a brave fellow had died with his hand shut fast over
Frazer's long, slim fingers; many a man's first, awful moments in
hospital had been soothed by the touch of those same firm, slim
hands. And in the singsongs around the camp