I 



RIDING THE PLAINS 



grasp. Captain Duirs hurled one of these at the 

 devoted and unconscious group. 



It whirled through the air and fell plunk in the 

 other fire, scattering sparks and coals in all direc- 

 tions. The second was under way before the first 

 had landed. It hit a native with ditto ditto results 

 plus astonished and grieved language. The rest 

 followed in rapid-magazine fire. Every one hit its 

 ark fair and square. The air was full of sparks 

 ixploding in all directions; the brush was full of 

 akamba, their blankets flapping in the breeze 

 f their going. The convention was adjourned, 

 ere fell the sucking vacuum of a great silence, 

 aptain Duirs, breathing righteous wrath, flopped 

 eavily and determinedly down on his cot. I caught 

 faint snicker from the tent next door. 

 Captain Duirs sighed deeply, turned over, and 

 repared to sleep. Then one of the dogs uprose — I 

 ink it was Ben — stretched himself, yawned, ap- 

 roached deliberately, and began to drink from the 

 nvas bathtub just outside. He drank — lap lap 

 ap lap lap — for a very long time. It seemed in- 

 redible that any mere dog — or canvas bathtub — 

 uld hold so much water. The steady repetition 

 this sound long after it should logically have 

 ased was worse than the shenzi gathering around 

 e fire. Each lap should have been the last, but 



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