There you see, there was nothing in this story, but then I had never expected there would be. What I wanted was to watch the face and note the manner of its narrator. This I had done, and keenly, with the result that I felt convinced that the boy knew no more about Hensley's disappearance than I did myself. Upon this the police sergeant subsequently waxed somewhat superior. He resented the idea that what had baffled the wit of the police and native detectives combined might stand the slightest chance of being cleared up by me. However I didn't take offence, although my opinion of the abilities of his force was but medium, and that of the native detectives nowhere, though this applied more to their morality than ingenuity. It happened that I was in a position to know something of the methods of the latter in "getting up" cases. "Well good-bye, Glanton," said Kendrew, as we shook hands. "Devilish glad you came over in a friendly way. And, I say--mind you repeat the operation and that often. I like a jolly, good sort of neighbourly neighbour." I promised him I would, as I climbed into the saddle--and the great krantz seemed to echo back our cheery good-bye in ghostly refrain. I liked Kendrew, I decided as I rode along. He struck me as a lively, cheery sort of fellow with lots of fun in him, and not an atom of harm. Decidedly as a neighbour he would be an improvement on his poor old relative, who although a good chap enough had always been a bit of a fossil. That's one of the advantages of the up-country or frontier life, you take a man as you find him and no make believe, or stiffness or ceremony. If he's a good fellow he is, and all the better. If he isn't why then he isn't, and you needn't have any more to do with him than you want, or make any pretence about it. In the solitude as I took my way through the thorns the recollection of Hensley came upon me again, and I confess, as I thought upon it there, under the midnight moon--for I had started back rather later than I had intended--a sort of creepy feeling came over me. What the deuce had become of the man? If he had got a fit of mental aberration, and taken himself off, he would have left some spoor, yet no sign of any had been lighted upon by those who had again and again made diligent search. I looked around. The bush sprays seemed to take on all manner of weird shapes; and once my horse, shying and snorting at a big hare, squatting up on its haunches like a big idiot, bang in the middle of the path, gave me quite an unpleasant start. The black brow of the krantz cut the misty, star-speckled skyline now receding on my left behind--and then-- my horse gave forth another snort and at the same time shied so violently as to have unseated me, but that my nerves were--again I confess it--at something of an abnormal tension. A figure was stealing along in the not very distinct moonlight; a human figure or--was it? Suddenly it stopped, half in shadow.