THE DERELICT AN EX-TRANSPORT RIDER'S 

 STORY 



" I'M a thundering bad hand at spinning a yarn, boys/' 

 said Conway Barton to half-a-dozen young Templers 

 who had raided his chambers for a chat, a whisky and soda, 

 and a cigar ; " but as you have each in turn been trying 

 your hardest to outlie the late lamented Baron Mun- 

 chausen, I suppose I must have a shot also. So here goes. 

 ' You all remember poor old Jack Mortimore of the 

 I.L.H., who was laid low on Spion Kop. Well, shortly 

 after the last Matabele row, when supplies in Bulawayo 

 were at famine price, Jack and I went down to Johannes- 

 burg and sunk what few hundreds we were able to beg 

 and borrow in mules, buck- wagons, and provisions. 

 We decided to trek through Pretoria and Pietersburg and 

 across the Limpopo instead of taking the usual route via 

 Mafeking. All went as merrily as marriage bells until 

 we got well into the low country, when the tsetse-fly 

 attacked my companion's spans, and within three days 

 he had lost four of his best mules. In spite of reduced 

 teams we managed to continue the trek until within 

 a four days' journey of the Limpopo. One evening, 

 however, just as I was sitting down to an al fresco supper, 

 Jack rode up to my uitspaan, and, seating himself before 

 the arba longua fire, he opened as follows : ' Three more 

 of my mules are down with the cursed "fly/' and half a 



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