up, but it was Fred who
stopped him.

"Never mind that, old man. We'll follow 'em up! Our time's our own.
We'll get your cattle back, never fear. Dead ones are no use."

Brown stopped shooting and began to blubber. Whisky had not left him
manhood enough to see his whole available resources carried away before
his eyes, and he broke down as utterly as any child. It was neither
agreeable nor decent to watch, and I turned away. I was feeling sick
myself from the pressure of the Masai's knees in my stomach. That, and
the sun, and the long march, and hunger (for we had not stopped to eat
a meal that day) combined in argument, and I hunted about for a soft
place and a little shade. It happened that Fred Oakes was watching me,
although I did not know it. He suspected sunstroke.

I saw a clump of rushes that gave shade enough. I could crush down
some, and lie on those. I hurried, for I was feeling deathly sick now.
As I reached the grass my knees began giving under me. I staggered,
but did not quite fall.

That, and Fred's watchfulness, saved my life; for at the moment that
my head and shoulders gave the sudden forward lurch, a wounded Masai
jumped out of the rushes and drove with his spear at my breast. The
blade passed down my back and split my jacket.

He sprang back, and made another lunge at me, but Fred's rifle barked
at the same second and he fell over sidewise, driving the spear into my
leg in his death spasm.

The twenty minutes following that are the worst in memory. Kazimoto
broke the gruesome news that the spear-blade was almost surely
poisoned--dipped in gangrene. The Masai are no believers in wounded
enemies, or mercy on the battlefield.

We doubted the assertion for a while--I especially, for none but a
hypochondriac would care to admit without proof that gangrene had been
forced into his system. Kazimoto grew indignant, and offered to prove
the truth of his claim on some animal. But there was no living animal
in sight on which to prove it. We asked him how long gangrene,
injected in that way, took to kill a man.

"Very few minutes!" he answered.

Then it occurred that none of us knew what to do. Kazimoto announced
that he knew, and offered to make good at once if given permission. He
demanded permission again and again from each one of us, making me
especially repeat my words. Then he gathered stems of grass a third of
an inch thick from the bed of the tiny watercourse, and procee