which the bushman can swing up a rifle, or if it suits him
fire from the hip. A dash for liberty could, he fancied, have only one
result; it was evident that he must wait.

Now waiting is difficult to most men, and especially to those in whose
veins there flows the hot Southern blood, and Clavering felt the taste of
the second excellent cigar grow bitter in his mouth. He sat very still,
with half-closed eyes, and a little ironical smile upon his lips when his
grim companion glanced at him. In the meantime the stove crackled less
noisily and the room grew steadily colder. But Clavering scarcely felt the
chill, even when the icy draughts whirled the cigar-smoke about him, for
he began to see that an opportunity would be made for him, and waited,
strung up and intent. When he thought he could do so unobserved, he
glanced at the clock whose fingers now moved with a distressful rapidity,
knowing that his chance would be gone if the bob-sled arrived before the
cold grew too great for his jailer.

Ten minutes dragged by, then another five, and still the man sat smoking
tranquilly, while Clavering realized that, allowing for all probable
delays, Muller and Miss Torrance should arrive before the half-hour was
up. Ten more minutes fled by, and Clavering, quivering in an agony of
impatience, found it almost impossible to sit still; but at last the
bushman stood up and laid his rifle on the table.

"You will stop right where you are," he said. "I'm going to put a few
billets in the stove."

Clavering nodded, for he dared not trust himself to speak, and the man,
who took up an armful of the billets, dropped a few of them through the
open top of the stove. One, as it happened, jammed inside it, so that he
could get no more in, and he laid hold of an iron scraper to free it with.
He now stood with his back to Clavering, but the rifle still lay within
his reach upon the table.

Clavering rose up, and, though his injured foot was painful, moved forward
a pace or two noiselessly in his soft moccasins. A billet had rolled in
his direction, and swaying lithely from the waist, with his eyes fixed
upon the man, he seized it. The homesteader was stooping still, and he
made another pace, crouching a trifle, with every muscle hardening.

Then, the man turned sharply, and hurled the scraper straight at
Clavering. It struck him on the face, but he launched himself forward,
and, while the homesteader grabbed at his rifle, fell upon him. He f