"Sure I'm right. You are in charge of the outfit while I'm away. Get
it to the Omwamwi Falls, and wait there for me. You'll be able to hire
natives there. Send a runner back to Jinja by the southern route with a
message for the studio telling what's happened and asking for orders if
I don't show up again in thirty days."
"You're not going without breakfast!" demanded Marcus.
"No; I'll eat first," replied Orman.
"How about grub?" shouted O'Grady.
"Comin' right up!" yelled back Shorty from the cook tent.
Orman ate hurriedly, giving final instructions to O'Grady between
mouthfuls. When he had finished he got up, shouldered his pack, and
picked up his rifle.
"So long, boys!" he said.
They crowded up to shake his hand and wish him luck. Bill West was
adjusting the straps of a pack that he had slung to his back. Orman
eyed him.
"You can't come, Bill," he said. "This is my job."
"I'm coming along," replied West.
"I won't let you."
"You and who else?" demanded West, and then added in a voice that he
tried hard to control, "Rhonda's out there somewhere."
The hard lines of grim stubbornness on Orman's face softened. "Come on
then," he said; "I hadn't thought of it that way, Bill."
The two men crossed the camp and picked up the plain trail of the
horsemen moving northward.
X