In Manicaland summer wears the livery of the tropics. At the foot of the hills north of Macequece every yard of earth is vocal with life, and the bush is brave with color. Where the earth shows it is red, as though a wound bled. The mimosas have not yet come to flower, but amid their delicate green the long thorns, straight or curved like claws, gleam with the flash of silver. Palms poise aloft, brilliant and delicate, and under foot flowers are abroad. The flame-blossom blazes in scarlet. The sangdieu burns in sullen vermilion. Insects fill the world with the noise of their business-spiders, butterflies, and centipedes, ants, beetles and flies, and mysterious entities that crawl nameless underfoot. A peahen shrieks in the grass, and a kite whistles aloft. A remote speck in the sky denotes a watchful vulture, alert for any mishap to the citizens of the woods, and a crash of twigs may mean anything from a buck to a rhinoceros. There is a hectic on the face of nature.

The trader of Last Notch went homewards to his store through such a maze of urgent life, and panted in the heat. He had been out to shoot guinea-fowl, had shot none and expended all his cartridges, and his gun, glinting in the strong light as he walked, was heavy to his shoulder and hot to his hand. His mood was one of patient protest, for the sun found him an easy prey and he had yet some miles to go. Where another man would have said "Damn the heat," and done with it, John Mills, the trader, tasted the word on his lips, forebore to slip it, and counted it to himself for virtue. He set a large value on restraint, which, in view of his strength and resolute daring, was

perhaps not wholly false. He was a large man, more noticeable for a sturdy solidness of proportion than for height, and his strong face was won to pleasantness by a brown beard, which he wore "navy fash." His store, five big huts above the kloof known as Last Notch, was at the heart of a large Kafir population;

and the natives, agriculturists by convention and warriors between whiles, patronized him very liberally. The Englishmen and Portuguese of the country held him in favor, and he enjoyed that esteem which a strong quiet man, who has proved himself to have reserves of violence, commonly wins from turbulent neighbors.

He was trying for a short cut home, and purposed to wade the Revue River wherever he should strike it. Over the low bush about him he could see his hills yet a couple of hours off, and he sighed for thirst and extreme discomfort. No one, he knew, lived thereabouts-no one, at least, who was likely to have whisky at hand, though, for the matter of that, he would have welcomed a hut and a draught of Kafir itywala. His surprise was the greater, then, when there appeared from the growth beside his path as white a man as himself, a tall, somewhat ragged figure, but rags tell no news at all in Manicaland,-who wore a large black moustache and smiled affably on him.

He noted that the stranger was & fine figure of a man, tall and slim, with clear dark eyes and tanned face, and he saw, too, that he wore a heavy Webley on his right hip. The newcomer continued to smile as Mills scanned him over, and waited for the trader to speak first.

"Hullo!" said Mills at length.

"'Ullo!" replied the stranger, smiling

still.

He had a capital smile, and Mills was captivated into smiling in sympathy.

"Who may you be?" he asked agreeably; "didn't expect to meet no white men about here. Where's your boys?" The tall man waved his hand vaguely in the direction of the coast, as though to imply that he had carriers somewhere in that part of the world.

"Yais," he said pleasantly. "An' you are Jone Mills, eh?"

"That's me," said Mills promptly, lowering the butt of his gun to the ground and resting both hands on the muzzle. The stranger started slightly, but did not cease to smile.

"I don't seem to know you," pondered Mills. "I can't fix you at all." "Ah, but you will. Le' me see. Was it Beira, eh?"

Mills shook his head decidedly. "I never was in Beira," he said.

"Not Beira?" queried the stranger. "Oh, but surelee. No? Well, Mandega's, per'aps?"

"Mandega's? Yes, I was there for a bit. I had a block of claims on the ditch, next to old Jimmy Ryan's."

"Ah, yais," said the tall man eagerly. "I know 'im. An' there you shoot the Intendente, not? That was ver' fine. I see you coom down all quiet, an' shoot 'im in the 'ead. It was done ver' nice?"

Mills face darkened. "He was robbin' me, the swine," he answered. "He'd been robbin' me for six months. But that's nobody's business but mine, and anyhow I didn't shoot him in the head. It was in the chest. An' now, who the blazes are you?"

"You do' know me?" smiled the stranger; "but I know you. Oh, ver' well. I see you ver' often. You see? My name is Jacques."

"Jack what?" demanded Mills.

"Not Jack-Jacques. Tha' 's all. All the people call me Frenchy, eh? You don' remember?"

"No," said Mills thoughtfully; "but then I seen a good many chaps, and I'd be like to forget some o' them. You doin' anything round here?"

The man who called himself Jacques held up a finger. "Ah, you wan' to know, eh? Well, I don' tell you. I fin' anything, I don't tell all the people: I don't blow the gaff. I sit still, eh? I lie low, eh? I keep 'im all for me, eh? You see?"

"Well, of course," agreed Mills; "struck a pocket, I suppose. I shouldn't have thought you'd have found much here. But then, of course, you're not going to give your game away. Where's your camp? I could do with a drink."

You

"Back there," said the Frenchman, pointing in the direction whence Mills had come. "'Bout five miles. don' want to come, eh? Too far, eh?" "Yes, I reckon it's too far," replied Mills. "I'm not more than four miles from my own kia now. You goin' on?" "Yais," agreed the Frenchman, "I go a leetle bit. Not too far, eh?"

They moved on through the bush. Mills shifted his gun from shoulder to shoulder, and suffered still from heat and sweat. His taller companion went more easily, striding along, as Mills thought, glancing at him, "like a fox." The warmth appeared not to distress him in the least.

"By Jove," exclaimed the trader. "You're the build of man for this blooming country. You travel as if you was born to it. Don't the heat trouble you at all?"

"Oh, no," answered the Frenchman carelessly. "You see, I come from a 'ot country. In France it is ver' often 'ot. But you don' like it, eh?"

"No," said the trader, with emphasis. "I was after pea-hen, or you wouldn't see me out this time o' the day. English chaps can't stand it."

"Eh?"

"English chaps can't stand it, I said."

till its cooler."

"Ah, yais."

They were now nearing the river. A steam rose over the bushes and spiralled into the air, and the hum of water going slowly was audible. A few min

utes of walking brought them to its banks. The stream flowed greasily and dark, some forty yards wide, but in the middle it forked about a spit of sand not more than ten paces broad. It was a very Lethe of a river, running oilily and with a slumberous sound, and its reputation for crocodiles was vile.

Mills sat down and began to pull off his boots.

"As well here as anywhere," he said. "I'll try it, anyhow."

"I go back now," said the Frenchman. "Some day I come up an' see you, eh? You like that?"

"Come along any time," replied Mills cheerfully as he slung his boots across his shoulders. "You don't think that island's a quicksand, eh?"

The Frenchman turned and stared at it. "I do' know," he answered. "Per'aps. You goin' to try, eh?"

"Yes, I'll have a shot at it. You can mos'ly trust yourself on 'em, if you walk light and quick. But we'll see." The Frenchman watched him as he waded out. The black water reached no higher than his knees, but the ground was soft underfoot, and he floundered anxiously.

"It sucks at you," he called. "It's all greasy."

He moved on, and came to the sand island.

"It's better here," he called. "I'll be all right now."

The Frenchman jumped to his feet. "Look out!" he shouted, gesticulating violently. "You go down; walk off 'im!"

Mills glanced down, and saw that the creeping sand had him knee-deep. He dragged his right foot forth

and

his left leg sank to the crutch, and he only kept his balance with a violent effort.

The Frenchman danced on the bank. "Throw you' gun down," he shouted. "Throw you' boots down. You' in to the waist now. Push yo'self back to the water. Push hard."

He wrung his hands together with excitement.

Mills threw down his rifle, and the sand swallowed it at once. He turned his head to the man at the bank.

"It's no good, chum," he said quietly. "I reckon you better take a shot at me with that revolver."

The sand was in his arm-pits. The Frenchman ceased to jump and wring his hands, and smiled at him oddly. Mills, in the midst of his trouble,, felt. an odd sense of outraged propriety. The smile, he reflected, was ill-timed-and he was sinking deeper.

"What you grinning at?" he gasped. "Shoot, can't you?"

"I coom pull you out," said the Frenchman, fumbling at the buckle of his belt, and he forthwith stepped into the water.

He waded swiftly to within five feet of the sinking man and flung him the end of the belt. Mills failed to catch it, and the Frenchman shifted his feet cautiously and flung again.

"Now," he shouted, as the trader gripped it, "catch 'old tight," and he started to drag him bodily forwards.

"Careful," cried Mills; "you're sinking."

The Frenchman stepped free hastily, and strained on the belt again. Mills endeavored to kick with his entombed legs, and called a warning as his rescuer sunk in the sands. Thus they wrestled, and at length Mills found his head in the water and his body free. He rose, and they waded to the bank. "Of all the quicksands I ever saw," said the trader slowly, as he sat down

and gazed at the place that had so nearly been his grave, "that one's the worst."

"'Orrid," agreed the Frenchman, smiling amicably. "You was ver' near

buried, eh?"

"Yes," said the trader thoughtfully. "I suppose any one 'ud say you saved my life, Frenchy?"

"Yes," replied the other. "Exactly," said Mills. "Well, there's my hand for you, Frenchy. You done me a good turn. I'll do as much for you one of these days." "Eh?" said the Frenchman as he shook hands.

"You've got a nasty habit of saying 'Eh?" retorted the trader. "I said I'd do as much for you one of these days. Comprenny?"

points of light, and the bush woke with a new life. The crackle of their boots on the stiff grass as they walked sent live things scattering to left and right, and once a night-adder hissed malevolently at the Frenchman's heel. They talked little as they went, but Mills noticed that now and again his companion appeared to check a laugh. He experienced a feeling of vague indignation against the man who had saved his life; he was selfish in not sharing his point of view and the thoughts which amused him. At times reserve can be the most selfish thing imaginable, and one might as well be reticent on a desert island as in Manicaland. Moreover, despite the tolerant manners of the country, Mills was conscious of something unexplained in his companion,

"Tha's all right," interrupted the Frenchman. "I coom now."

"Right you are," said Mills heartily. "Come along then!"

They strode off in the direction of the drift, Mills going thoughtfully, with an occasional glance at his companion. The Frenchman smiled perpetually, and once he laughed out.

"What's the joke?" demanded the trader.

"I think I do a good piece of business to-day," replied the Frenchman.

"H'm, yes," continued Mills suspiciously.

It was a longish uphill walk to the trader's store, and the night fell while they were yet on the way. With the darkness there came a breeze, cool and refreshing; the sky filled with sharp

cion on general grounds.

The circle of big dome-shaped huts which constituted the store of Last Notch came into view against a sky of dull velvet as they breasted the last rise. The indescribable homely smell of a fire greeted the nostrils with the force of a spoken welcome. They could hear the gabble of the Kafirs at their supper and the noise of their shrill empty laughter.

"That's home," said Mills, breaking a long silence.

"Yais," murmured the Frenchman; "'ome, eh? Yais. Ver' naice."

"You may say what you like," continued the trader aggressively. "Home is something. Though never so 'umble, ye know, there's no place like home."

"Tha's all right," assented the other gaily. "I know a man name' Albert Smith, an' 'e sing that in the jail at Beira. Sing all the night till I stop 'im with a broom. Yais."

Mills grunted, and they entered the skoff kia-the largest of the huts, sacred to the uses of a dining-room. It contained two canvas chairs, a camp table, a variety of boxes to sit upon, and