of great thorn boughs
in order to construct a sufficiently firm way. Incidents such as these
would constitute a sufficiency of hard labour--in a steaming climate,
too--at which an English navvy, if put, would not hesitate to go on
strike. No, this _trek_ decidedly was not a picnic. Yet through it
all--drenchings, heat, exhaustion, what not--Wyvern never turned a hair.
He was always equable, always ready to take things as they came.
Fleetwood, less self-contained, was prone to fire off language of a more
or less sultry nature upon such occasions.

"I wouldn't curse so much if I were you, Joe," laughed Wyvern once. "It
must be so infernally additionally exhausting." And the other had
laughed, and, while thoroughly concurring, had explained that he
couldn't help it.

Plenty of compensations were there, however, for these and other
incidents of the road. When they got into the forest country sport was
fairly plentiful, and when Wyvern brought down a splendid koodoo bull,
shot fair and clean through the heart, it was a moment in his life not
the least thrilling that he had known; and instinctively he had gloated
over the great spiral horns, picturing them at Seven Kloofs--when he had
bought it back, which of course he fully intended to do, as one of the
results of their successful quest--and himself and Lalante, in close
juxtaposition, admiring them while he went over some of the incidents of
their eventful _trek_--incidentally, perhaps not for the first time.
Then the _trek_, under the glorious moon with the breaths of night
distilling around, the whole atmosphere redolent of life and
health-giving openness; or, failing the said moon, the blue-black
velvety vault of heaven aglow with myriad stars, seeming to hang down to
the earth itself with a luscious brilliance unknown to the severe
northern skies; vivid meteors and streak-like falling stars flashing
with a frequency only to be appreciated by those whom circumstances lead
to passing many nights in the open. So, as they moved on, slowly, but
surely as they hoped, towards their goal, these were indeed
compensations.

And Lalante? She was ever in his thoughts, ever enwrapped in every
joyous communing with joyous Nature, or in time of toil and hardship,
such toil or hardship was being endured for her. Often, at the midnight
outspan, when Fleetwood had laughingly declared that he, having nothing
particularly pleasant to think about, and being most infernally slee