Captain Frazer had scarcely finished speaking, when the voice of the
General sounded in their ears.
"A plucky attack and a plucky defeat, Captain Frazer. Kemp is a man
worth fighting. You are not wounded?"
"Thanks to Trooper Weldon," the Captain told him, with a smile.
The General's keen glance included them both.
"Good! And now can you spare me a trusty man? One who can ride? I
must have some despatches at Krugersdorp before midnight. I should
like some one from your squadron."
The eyes of Captain Frazer and Weldon met. Again the General's keen
glance was on them both; then it concentrated itself upon the
younger man.
"I am ready," he answered to its unspoken question.
"You are sure you are fit? It is forty miles, and the rain will be
on us inside of an hour."
"It makes no difference."
As he spoke, Weldon felt himself surveyed from hat to shoelace.
"Very well. Get yourself fed, and come to my tent in an hour. It
will be better to wait until dusk before starting, for these hills
are infested with Boers. Do you know the country?"
"Partly. I can learn the rest."
"You need a remount."
Weldon stroked the little gray broncho.
"If I had my own horse. Otherwise, I prefer this. I can trust her,
even if she is tired."
Again the glance swept him over, beginning at the boyish face,
resolute and eager beneath its streaks of red-brown dust. Then, as
Weldon saluted, the General turned and rode away, with the Captain
at his side.
"You've the making of a man there, Captain Frazer," was his sole
comment.
Weldon, meanwhile, was allowing the little gray broncho to pick her
own dainty way out of the shambles about her feet. Then, once free
from the litter of men and horses, he turned her head to the spot
where, he had been told, his squadron were gathering together their
diminished forces. As he rode slowly onward, he was surprised to see
how low the sun had dropped. The fighting must have lasted longer
than he had thought. It had been hot and heavy; but at least he had
not funked it. For so much he could be thankful. In so far as he
could recall any of his emotions as he had dashed into range of the
pitiless firing, they had been summed up in a dull rage against the
enemy, mingled with a vague hope that no harm should come to the
plucky little mount. Just one instant's pause he could remember.
That was when he had put forth all his strength to check her pace
until he could readjust a strap that was plainly galling her. And
afterwards? Not even the thoroughbred Nig could have played her part
in the fight with more steady gallantry. Stooping, he eased the bit
and patted the firm gray neck where the mane swept upward for its
arching fall.
"Boss?"
He straightened in his saddle.
"Kruger Bobs! By all special providences, where did you come from?"
"Naauwpoort. Kruger Bobs come bring Nig to Boss."
"Kruger Bobs, you're a genius."
Kruger Bobs vanished behind his smile.
"Ya, Boss," he replied then. "Boss all right?"
"Yes, all right."
"Dutchmans no killed Boss?"
"No."
Doubtfully Kruger Bobs shook his sable bristles. He had heard the
firing, such firing as he had never dreamed of until then, and it
seemed to him impossible that any man could come unscathed out of
the heart of it. Of Weldon's being in the very heart of it, no doubt
had once stained the loyal whiteness of his soul. To assure himself
of Weldon's safety, he ambled around the gray broncho in a clumsy
circle. The gray broncho showed her appreciation of the attention by
nipping viciously at the flank of his horse. By Weldon's left side,
Kruger Bobs halted and pointed an accusing forefinger at his knee.
"Dutchmans hurt Boss," he said anxiously.
"Where?"
"Dere." In spite of his effort for sternness, the voice of Kruger
Bobs quavered with anxiety.
Bending over, Weldon glanced down at the dark red stain on the coil
of khaki serge. Then, all at once, he remembered the sudden stinging
of his leg, just before he had started the gray broncho on her last
mad rush across the lead-swept plain. In the excitement that
followed, the matter had entirely passed out of his mind. Even now
that his attention was called to it, he was conscious of no physical
discomfort.
"Kruger Bobs go for doctor?" the boy was urging.
Weldon laughed reassuringly.
"It's nothing, Kruger Bobs. I've no time to fool with doctors now."
"What Boss do?"
"Feed Piggie, eat something, look up Mr. Carew and then get to the
General's tent, inside an hour."
"What for de big boss soldier?"
"He wants me."
"Ya?" Kruger Bobs demanded uneasily.
"To ride a despatch."
"Despatch!" Kruger Bobs exploded in hot wrath. "Kruger Bobs go
despatch; Boss go bed." "Can't do it, Kruger Bobs. This is war, and
I've given my word to the General. It was an order, and I had to do
it." Backing his horse off for a step or two, Kruger Bobs sat
looking at his master and shaking his head mournfully. Then he
straightened in the saddle.
"Boss go; Kruger Bobs go, too," he said, with steady decision.
Less than an hour later, outside the General's tent Kruger Bobs sat
astride The Nig, with the rein of the gray broncho in his hand. The
clouds, since noon banked low in the eastern horizon, had swept up
across the sky, and already the rain was pattering drearily over the
hunched-up shoulders of Kruger Bobs. Inside the tent, the colloquy
was brief. Twice Weldon repeated over the substance of his
despatches and his instructions regarding their destination. The
despatches were slipped between the layers of his shoe-sole, the cut
stitches were replaced, and Weldon rose to his feet.
"My nigger has come from Naauwpoort, bringing me a fresh mount," he
said then. "May I take him with me?"
"What is he?"
"A Kaffir."
"From where?"
"Piquetberg Road."
"Can you trust him?"
Weldon's eyes met the eyes of the General steadily. "As I would
trust myself," he answered.
Five minutes later, Weldon passed out of the tent door. At his
quarters, he dismounted and went in search of a blanket. Muffled in
the thick folds, the horses' feet would make no sound on the
hard-baked earth. Kruger Bobs, meanwhile, went out to reconnoitre in
order to discover a possible gap in the line of Boer pickets.
The pickets once passed, Weldon mounted once more and, with Kruger
Bobs following close behind, rode carefully away into the inky,
drizzling night. For the first hour, he rode steadily and with
comparative comfort. The excitement of the battle was still in his
blood, its noises ringing in his head, its sights dancing like
will-o'-the-wisps before his eyes. Later, the inevitable reaction would
follow, and the inevitable weariness. Now, refreshed by their
supper, both he and the broncho had come to their second wind, and
they faced the storm pluckily and with unbowed heads. Beside him,
The Nig, fresh and fit as a horse could be, galloped onward steadily
under the weight of Kruger Bobs. It had been at Weldon's own command
that Kruger Bobs had abandoned his raw-boned steed and placed
himself astride the sacred body of the thoroughbred Nig. On such a
night and after such a battle, a horse abandoned was a horse forever
lost. Neither The Nig nor Piggie could be left to any chance
ownership, but neither could Piggie, fresh from a two-day fight, be
left to the mercies of an inexperienced rider. Three inches shorter
than his master, Kruger Bobs weighed fifty pounds the more, and he
rode with the resilient lightness of a feather bed.
Weldon's hour of rest had been divided in strict ratio between
himself, his friend and his horse. For fully half that period, he
and Kruger Bobs had rubbed the sturdy gray legs and anointed the
scratched neck with supplies taken from the portable veterinary
hospital always to be found in the recesses of the Kaffirs scanty
garments. Then, snatching a hasty meal, with the last of it still in
his hands, Weldon strode away to look for Carew. He found him,
bandaged but jovial, a shattered bone in his foot and his pipe in
his shut teeth. Fortunately the pain bore no relation to the
seriousness of the case, and Weldon left him to his pipe, cheered by
the doctor's assurance that two or three weeks would bring him back
into fighting trim. Carew's own disrespectful comments on the
injured foot were still in his ears, as he entered the tent of the
General.
By degrees, the night grew dark and darker. Riding eastward with
their backs to the southerly storm, nevertheless now and again the
wind swirled about fiercely, to send the lashing rain against their
faces. Under their feet, the dusty veldt turned to mire, from mire
to a pasty glue, and from glue to the consistency of cream. Bottom
there was none; the bottomlessness of it only became more apparent
when one or other of the horses stumbled into the hole of an
ant-bear. Twice the gray broncho was on her knees; once The Nig came
down so sharply that Kruger Bobs rolled forward out of his saddle,
to land on his back, nose to nose with his astonished mount. Worst
of all, the fever of the fight was dying out from Weldon's veins.
His pulses were slowing down, and the ceaseless jar of the gray
broncho's gallop waked his wounded leg to a pain which fast became
intolerable.
Kruger Bobs edged closer to his side.
"Boss sick?" he asked.
"Not altogether content, Kruger Bobs."
"Leg?" the boy questioned anxiously.
"Yes; that--and some other things."
"Me help Boss?"
"No, thank you. I'd better let the mess alone."
"Boss ride Nig?" Kruger Bobs suggested, in the hushed tone in which
all their talk had been carried on.
"It is better not to change."
The silence broadened, broken only by the splashing of eight hoofs
in the ever-deepening mire, and by the sighing squeak of wet strap
rubbing on wet strap. Then Kruger Bobs spoke again.
"Paddy send," he said, as he poked a soft parcel into Weldon's
dangling hand. "He say 'Give it to little Canuck.'"
Weldon felt and tasted his way into the parcel. It was large, and
filled with savory bits which Paddy must have gleaned here and there
from the general mess, robbing freely from many a greater man, all
for the sake of the "little Canuck."
It was no time for the discipline which bids a servant eat of the
crumbs from his master's table. For the hour, Kruger Bobs and he
were friends, bound upon one and the same errand. With impartial
hand, Weldon tore the paper across and divided its contents. He only
regretted that convention had forbidden him the trick of smacking
his lips in sign of relish. It would have been good to have the
ability of Kruger Bobs to give audible token of his appreciation of
Paddy's bounty.
Somewhat refreshed, he straightened in his saddle.
"Now be careful, Kruger Bobs. There are Boers in these hills," he
warned his companion; "and it would never do for us to be sniped."
Kruger Bobs came close to his side.
"Dutchmans kill Kruger Bobs, no matter; kill Boss, no take despatch.
Boss say to Kruger Bobs where de despatch. Kruger Bobs take him to
Krugersdorp, if Boss die."
And Weldon shivered a little, as the silence dropped again.
The ridges were steeper now, and came in more swift succession, as
the horsemen plodded wearily along the southern slope of the Rand.
Piggie was breathing heavily; and Weldon, clinging to his saddle
with the purely mechanical grip of the exhausted rider, halted again
and again to rest the plucky little animal whose best was always his
for the asking. Of his own condition he took no heed. It was all in
the game. He would play the game out as long as he could; but his
last move should be, as his first had been, strictly according to
rule. Meanwhile, for two facts he was at a loss to account. Dawning
was still hours distant. Nevertheless, the darkness before him was
blotted and blurred with alternating waves of blue and gray. The
veldt was empty; yet, above the roar of the rain around him, an odd
purring sound was in his ears. Then everything lost itself in his
determination not to allow the saddle to slip from between his tired
knees.
He roused himself at the challenging voice of a picket.
"Despatches for General Kekewich," he answered, in a voice which
seemed to his own ears to have come from miles away.
"Advance and give the countersign."
Irritably he gathered himself together.
"I can't, I tell you. I don't know your blasted countersign. I've
despatches from Dixon to General Kekewich. Take me to him at once."
The colloquy lasted for moments, in a drawn battle of determination.
Its stimulus had waked Weldon from his lethargy; it had also waked
again that fierce and throbbing pain below his knee. He left the
sentry in no doubt, either of the truth of his statement, or of his
mood. Then, with Kruger Bobs at his side, he plodded forward towards
the lights of the town, while he braced himself for a final effort.
Fifteen minutes later, he reached the second line of pickets. The
gray broncho's head drooped pitifully, as Weldon sat waiting for the
inevitable challenge. It came at last; and Weldon's answering voice
was slow with a weakness which was not all feigned.
"Despatches from Dixon's column. Take me to the Commandant, please."
He was dimly aware of a hand on his bridle, dimly conscious that
Piggie was being led forward for a seemingly endless distance. As
they halted in front of a gray stone building, Weldon dimly heard
the tingling of many bells within, then the hurried opening of a
window, and a voice demanding the cause of the disturbance below. He
felt himself going fast; but, gripping his will with all his might,
he pulled himself together long enough to answer,--
"Despatches for General Kekewich between the soles of my left boot."
Then he pitched forward on his broncho's neck.