hed that night until midnight, slept until dawn, and were off
again. At noon we reached rising ground, and Kazimoto ran ahead of us
to the summit. We saw him standing at gaze for three or four minutes
with one hand shading his eyes before he came scampering back, as
excited as if his own fortune were in the balance.

"Hooko-chini!" he shouted. "Hooko-chini--mba-a-a-li sana!"--(They're
down below there, very far away!)

We hurried up-hill, but for many minutes could see nothing except a
plain of waving grass higher than a man's head and almost as
impenetrable as bamboo-country that carried small hope in it for man or
beast, that would be a holocaust in the dry season when the heat set
fire to the grass, and was an insect-haunted marsh at most other times.
However, path across it there must be, for the Greeks had driven
Brown's cattle that way that very morning, and Kazimoto swore he could
see them in the distance, although Brown, and Will, and I--all three
keen-sighted--could see nothing whatever but immeasurable, worthless
waving grass.

At last I detected a movement near the horizon that did not synchronize
with the wind-blown motion of the rest. I pointed it out to the
others, and after a few minutes we agreed that it moved against the
wind.

"They're hurrying again," said Brown, peering under both hands.
"There's no feed for cattle on all this plain. They're racing to get
to short grass before the cattle all die. Come on--let's hurry after
'em!"

For the second time on that trip we essayed a short cut, making as
straight as a bee would fly for the point on the horizon where we knew
the Greeks to be. And for the second time we fell into a bog, nearly
losing our lives in it. We had to pull one another out, using even our
precious rifles as supports in the yielding mud, and then spending
equally precious time in cleaning locks and sights again.

After that we hunted for the cattle trail and followed that closely;
and that was not so easy as it reads, because the trampled grass had
risen again, and cattle and mounted men can cross easily ground that
delays men on foot.

The heat was that of an oven. The water--what there was of it in the
holes and swampy places--stank, and tasted acrid. The flies seemed to
greet us as their only prospect of food that year. The monotony of
hurrying through grass-stems that cut off all view and only showed the
sky through a waving curtain overhead was more nerve-trying t