The first suspicion that dawned on me of something more than mere freebooting on the part of Coutlass, was due to the discovery of hoof-prints of either mules or horses.  I was marching alone in advance, and came on them beside a stream that was only apparently fordable in that one place.  After making sure of what they were I halted to let Will and Brown catch up.

“Did Coutlass have money enough to buy mules for himself and gang?” wondered Will.

“That robber?” snorted Brown.  “When Lady Saffren Waldon refused him tobacco money in the hotel he tried to borrow from me!”

“Where could be steal mules?” Will asked.

“Nowhere.  Aren’t any!”

“Horses’ then?”

“He’d never take horses.  They’d die.”

“What are they riding, then?”

“Unless he stole trained zebras from the gov’ment farm at Naivasha,” said Brown, “an’ they’re difficulter to ride ’an a greasy pole up-ended on a earthquake, he must ha’ bought mules from the one man who has any to sell.  And he lives t’other side o’ Nairobi.  There are none between there and here—­none whatever.  Zachariah Korn—­him who owns mules—­is too wide awake to be stolen from.  He bought ’em, you take it from me, and paid twice what they were worth into the bargain.”

“Then he bought them with her money!” said Will.

“If not Schillingschen’s,” said I.

“Or the Sultan of Zanzibar’s” said Will, “or the German government’s.”

“But why?  Why should she, or they, conspire at great expense and risk to steal Brown’s cattle?”

“They’ll figure,” said Will, “that Brown is helping us, and therefore, Brown is an enemy.  Prob’ly they surmise Brown is in league with us to show us a short cut to what we’re after.  If that’s how they work it out, then they wouldn’t need think much to conclude that putting Brown on the blink would hoodoo us.  Maybe they allow that that much bad luck to begin with would unsettle Brown’s friendly feelings for us.  Anyway—­somebody bought the mules—­somebody stole the cattle—­cattle are somewhere ahead.  Let’s hurry forward and see!”

We did hurry, but made disgustingly poor time.  Once a dozen buffalo stampeded our tiny column.  Our five porters dropped their loads, and the biggest old bull mistook our only tent for our captain’s dead body and proceeded to play ball with it, tossing it and tearing it to pieces until at last Will got a chance for a shoulder shot and drilled him neatly.  Two other bulls took to fighting in the midst of the excitement and we got both of them.  Then the rest trotted off; so we packed the horns of the dead ones on the head of our free porter (for the tent he had carried was now utterly no use) and hastened on.

Once, in trying to make a cut that should have saved us ten or fifteen miles between two rivers, we fell shoulder-deep into a bog and only escaped after an hour’s struggle during which we all but lost two porters.  We had to retrace our steps and follow the Greek’s route, only to have the mortification of seeing Fred and our column of supplies coming over the top of a rise not eight miles behind us.