So just before dawn Fred came up with us, and was more pleased at our
discomfiture than sympathetic. He told off two men to carry the injured
porter to a mission station more than a day's march away, and
redistributed the loads. Then we went on again, once more placing rock,
hill, and cedar forest between us and our supply column, this time with
Fred's counsel ringing in our ears.

"Better send for nursemaids and perambulators, and have yourselves
pushed!"

At noon that day we found the track of the driven cattle, and soon
after that came on the half-devoured carcass of a heifer that the
Greeks had shot, presumably because it could not march, and perhaps
with the added reason that freshly-killed meat would draw off leopards
and hyenas and provide peace for a few miles.

Once on the trail it would not have been easy to lose it, except in the
dark, for the Greek marauders were bent on speed and the driven cattle
had smashed down the undergrowth in addition to leaving deep
hoof-prints at every water-course.

The first suspicion that dawned on me of something more than mere
freebooting on the part of Coutlass, was due to the discovery of
hoof-prints of either mules or horses. I was marching alone in
advance, and came on them beside a stream that was only apparently
fordable in that one place. After making sure of what they were I
halted to let Will and Brown catch up.

"Did Coutlass have money enough to buy mules for himself and gang?"
wondered Will.

"That robber?" snorted Brown. "When Lady Saffren Waldon refused him
tobacco money in the hotel he tried to borrow from me!"

"Where could be steal mules?" Will asked.

"Nowhere. Aren't any!"

"Horses' then?"

"He'd never take horses. They'd die."

"What are they riding, then?"

"Unless he stole trained zebras from the gov'ment farm at Naivasha,"
said Brown, "an' they're difficulter to ride 'an a greasy pole up-ended
on a earthquake, he must ha' bought mules from the one man who has any
to sell. And he lives t'other side o' Nairobi. There are none between
there and here--none whatever. Zachariah Korn--him who owns mules--is
too wide awake to be stolen from. He bought 'em, you take it from me,
and paid twice what they were worth into the bargain."

"Then he bought them with her money!" said Will.

"If not Schillingschen's," said I.

"Or the Sultan of Zanzibar's" said Will, "or the German government's."

"But why? Why should she, or they, conspire a