ree hours, but
although we heard rifle firing repeatedly we did not once catch sight
of smoke or men. We marched into camp late that night with a feeling
of foreboding that we could not explain but that troubled us both
equally.

Once or twice in the night we heard firing again, as if somebody's camp
not very far away was invaded by leopards, or perhaps lions. Yet at
dawn there were no signs of tents. And when that night we arrived at
Brown's homestead we seemed to have the whole world to ourselves.

Brown's house was a tiny wooden affair with a thick grass roof. It
boasted a big fireplace at one end of the living-room, and a chimney
that Brown had built himself so cunningly that smoke could go up and
out but no leopards could come down.

He got very drunk that night to celebrate the home-coming, and stayed
completely drunk for three days, we making use of his barn to give our
porters a good rest. By day we shot enough meat for the camp, and at
night we sat over the log fire, praying that Brown might sober up, Fred
singing songs to his infernal concertina, and all the natives who could
crowd in the doorway listening to him with all their ears. Fred made
vast headway in native favor, and learned a lot of two languages at
once.

Every day we sent Kazimoto and another boy exploring among the Lumbwa
tribe, gathering information as to routes and villages, and it was
Kazimoto who came running in breathless one night just as Brown was at
last sobering up, with the news that some Greeks had swooped down on
Brown's cattle, had wounded two or three of the villagers who herded
them, and had driven the whole herd away southward.

That news sobered Brown completely. He took the bottle of whisky he
had just brought up from the cellar and replaced it unopened.

"There's on'y one Greek in the world knew where my cattle were!" he
announced grimly. "There's on'y one Greek I ever talked to about
cattle. Coutlass, by the great horn spoon! The blackguard swore he
was after you chaps--swore he didn't care nothing about me! What he
did to you was none o' my business, o' course--an' I figured anyway as
you could look out for yourselves! Not that I told the swine any o'
your business, mind! Not me! I was so sure he was gunnin' for you
that I told him my own business to throw him off your track! And now
the devil goes an' turns on me!"

He got down his rifle and began overhauling it, feverishly, yet with a
deliberate care