e. Just
say I died, don't say how it hurt."

"All right, mate," said the other, for he had no comfort to give.

And then they walked on again in silence till the moon declined before
the coming day, the cruel day, which brought the heat and the following
crows again. Dawn brought them to a patch of "dead finish," as the
settlers call a dense and thorny scrub with pretty green leaves, through
which it is well nigh impossible to force a way even under the most
favourable circumstances; and which presented an utterly impassable
barrier to men in their condition. They turned aside once more, and
Anderson thought to himself that they must indeed have given up hope,
to be stopped by an impassable barrier and yet to make no moan. It was
surely the very depths of hopelessness when all ways were alike to them.
He looked back on their tracks and dismay filled his heart; they were
not firm and straight, but wavering and wandering like those of men in
the last extremity. He had followed tracks like these before now, and
they always led to the same thing. He wondered dully would any one ever
follow those tracks. A little further on Helm let go his arm and ran on
ahead.

"We'll never do any good at this rate," he gasped, "never--never;" and
he pulled at the collar of his shirt till he tore it away. "We must
have something to drink. We 'll die else, and I mean to have a fight for
life. There's the old horse, he can't stagger a step further; what's the
good of keeping him? Let's shoot him--and--and--There's enough blood in
him to--to--"

"No, no, man, no. I tell you that's the beginning of the end--more than
the beginning--the end in fact."

"I don't care. I can't stand this;" and before Anderson could stop him,
Helm had drawn his pistol and shot the horse in the head.

The poor beast was at his last gasp, and for the last hour Anderson had
been meditating the advisibility of leaving him behind, so it was no
material loss; his only care now was to prevent his mate from drinking
the blood, which, according to the faith of the bushmen, is worse than
drinking salt water.

"Poor old beggar," he said, taking his pistols and cartridges from the
saddle, where they had been wrapped among the blankets, "I suppose it
was about the kindest thing we could do for him. Come on, mate, we must
leave him to the crows now," and he caught Helm's arm and would have led
him on.

But the other resisted and breaking free ran back, and before he cou