All the morning and till mid-
afternoon, the column had been camping not far away, while their
weary, hungry mounts had been turned out on the veldt to graze. For
men and mounts, the halt was needed.
The fight about the laager had been no easy victory. Twelve hundred
half-starved Britons are no match for fifteen hundred Boers fat with
easy living. Weldon's hold on the crest had decided the game; but
the game had not played itself out without wounds for some and utter
weariness for all. War mad, yet half-dazed in all other respects,
Weldon had watched the reinforcements come swarming up the hill to
his relief, had heard their cheers mingling themselves with the
sound of his name. Then, listless, but with his arm still about
Paddy's shoulders, he had seen the fight move to its destined
finish. He came down from the hilltop, feeling that something had
taken yet one more turn in the evertightening coil of his brain. For
one instant, as they were laying Paddy into the narrow grave scooped
out of the veldt, the coil relaxed. Then, as the lumps of earth
closed over his plucky, loyal little comrade, it tightened again and
pressed on him more closely than ever.
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