d him?"

"What, Strachan!" cried Captain Reece. "Impossible! You can't be Tom
Strachan!"

"As sure as you are Dodger Reece. I should not have dared to call you
that to your face then, though."

"Well, but, you know, I should never have recognised you."

"I daresay not; I was twelve years old when you left Harton, and I have
altered a bit since, no doubt. You were seventeen, and have not changed
so much."

"I am very glad to see you, anyhow," said Reece, "and we will have a
good chat presently. Just now I must not lose my opportunity; the rocks
seem pretty crowded. The beggars are blazing away from every crevice
about them."

Strachan wisely asked no questions, but watched and followed. The Arabs
had evidently gathered in considerable numbers about the pile of
boulders among which the gun-cotton mine was buried. Reece had
forbidden any one to molest them from the balcony, not wishing to drive
them away. He now went to his battery, attached the wires, brought two
ends together, and the ground shook. There was a roar and a rattle;
blocks of stone, arms, heads, legs went flying into the air, and a whole
posse of Arabs were seen scuttling away into the mimosa bushes.

"What is bred in the bone," said Strachan to himself.

"He is a Dodger still!"

The men got some more shots at their enemies in the confusion caused by
the explosion. It was a useful measure, this, however; for six men with
water-cans, and six with rifles, who were waiting close to the gap,
rushed out to the well the moment they heard the explosion, and in the
confusion into which the enemy were thrown by an event which seemed to
them supernatural, in the dust and in the smoke they accomplished their
task of filling the cans and retiring without being observed, much less
attacked.

It was not until they were safely back in the zereba that the Arabs
began firing harmless volleys, in evident anger at having been out-
manoeuvred. The water gained was not so much in quantity, but was a
great boon nevertheless, for it had been absolutely necessary to water
the camels, and that had absorbed every drop of their own springs for
the last twelve hours, and was very insufficient for the poor animals
then. Strachan loosened his horse's girths and rubbed him down with a
palm-leaf or two, doing what he could for him after his gallant efforts.
It was pitiful to hear him whinny as he smelt the water in the
distance, and not to be able to get him any.