"
"And if they won't let you go back?"
"Then I'll ship myself straight down to Cape Town, and take service
with Captain Frazer. He can fight with the best of them, and he
knows I'm a man. It's riding at his heels I'll be, henceforth and
forevermore."
Turning, Weldon looked long into the jovial Irish face, and at the
hunchy figure that joggled to and fro in the saddle, with no heed to
the rhythm of his horse's pace.
"Who taught you to ride, Paddy?" he asked at length.
For an instant, a lump in Paddy's left cheek betrayed the
whereabouts of his tongue. Then quietly he made answer, "Sure,
little feller, it must have been the grace of Saint Patrick. Nobody
else has ever took a hand in the training of me. But I'll back him
against all the riding masters in London and Aldershot."
And the result showed that Paddy's confidence was not misplaced.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
By midwinter, the war had become a series of guerrilla raids, of
sweeping drives and of occasional skirmishes. The epoch of the
infantry had passed, and it was the day of the mounted man. The
home-going of the great Field Marshal, six months before, had been
followed by the return to England of transports loaded with foot
soldiers.
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