looked a gamecock as he stood there in the sunlight, his face all bathed in blood, and his shattered hand hanging numbed beside him.  So we gave him a couple in the legs to steady him, and down by his dead horse he went; but even then he was as eager for fight as a grass widow is for compliments, and it was not until Jan Viljoens jammed the butt of his rifle on the crown of his head that he stretched himself out and took no further part in that circus.  We carried him into our lines, and handed him over to our medical man, though even as we gathered him up our scouts came galloping in to tell us that a big body of British troops were advancing to cut us off from our main body.  But we knew that if we left him until your ambulance people found him, it was a million to one that he would bleed to death amongst the rocks, and he was too good a fighter and too brave a fellow to be left to a fate like that.  Had he shown the white feather we might have left him to the asvogels.”

“And so,” said I, “that is how little Dowling, son of Australia, came, as he said, ‘to stop a few’ for the sake of his breeding.  If I live, the men out in the sunny Southland shall hear how he did it, and his name shall be known round the gold-hunters’ camp fires, and be mentioned with pride where the cattle drovers foregather to talk of the African war and the men who fought and fell there.”

Australiaat the war.

Enslincamp.

Lately I have been over a very considerable tract of country in the saddle.  I might remain at one spot and glean the information from various sources, but do not care to do my business in that manner, simply because one is then at the mercy of one’s informants.  I find it quite hard enough to get at the truth even when it is personally sought for.  It is really astounding how lies increase and multiply as they spread from camp to camp.  At one spot a fellow ventilates an opinion that a big battle will be fought next day at a certain spot; some other person catches a portion of the conversation, and promptly tells his neighbour that a big battle has taken place at the spot mentioned.  A little later a passing train pulls up at that camp, and a party possessing a picturesque and vivid imagination at once informs the guard that a fearful fight has occurred, in which a General, a Colonel, twelve subs., and six hundred men have been killed on our side, with fourteen hundred wounded and nine hundred prisoners.  The Boer losses are generally estimated at something like five times that number.

The guard tells the tale later on to some traveller, who embellishes it, and passes it along as a fact.  He goes into details, tells harrowing stories concerning hair-raising escapes from shot and shell.  He splashes the surrounding rocks with gouts of blood, and then shudders dismally at the sight his fancy has conjured up.  When the thrilled listener has refreshed the tale-teller from his whisky flask, the romancist