w each other, now I'll introduce you. Sewin, this is Kendrew,
a very good fellow when you get to know him--Kendrew, this is Sewin, a
very good fellow when you get to know _him_. Now shake hands."

And they did, but the expression upon each face was so comical that I
could hardly keep from roaring, which would have upset the whole
understanding; in that each would have felt more savage at being made
ridiculous.

"Well, if I've been uncivil I'll not be above owning it," said Kendrew.
"So come inside Mr--Sewin, and we'll have a drink and think no more
about it."

"So we will," growled Falkner, partly through his handkerchief, for he
had undergone the bloodletting which I had told myself would be salutary
in his case. However there was no harm done, and having roared for a
boy to off-saddle, Kendrew led the way inside, on conviviality intent.

"You're early here, Sewin," I said. "Where did you sleep?"

"Sleep. In the blessed veldt. I called in at your place, but as far as
I could make out your nigger said you'd gone to Helpmakaar. So I
thought I'd go down to the river bank and try that place you pointed out
to us for a buck, then call back later and have a shakedown with you
when you come back."

Here Kendrew interrupted us by bellowing to his boy to put on a great
deal of beefsteak to fry, and to hurry up with it. "After a night in
the veldt you'll be ready for breakfast, I should think," he explained
heartily.

While we were at breakfast Falkner gave us a further outline of his
doings. A mist had come up along the river bank, and in the result he
had completely lost his bearings. Instead of taking his way back to my
place he had wandered on in the opposite direction, tiring his horse and
exasperating himself, as every high ridge surmounted only revealed a
further one with a deep, rugged, bushy valley intervening. At last his
horse had refused to go any further, and he had to make up his mind to
lie by in the veldt and wait till morning.

"The rum part of it was," he went on, "I couldn't have been very far
from here--and you'd think a horse would have known by instinct there
was a stable in front of him. Well, I, for one, am choked off belief in
the marvellous instinct of horses, and all that sort of rot. This brute
wasn't tired either--he simply and flatly refused to go on."

"Where was that?" I said, now roused to considerable interest. "At
least, I mean--was it far from here?"

"No. I just sa