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.
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