As he was quite unnerved, I took him back to my waggon, and gave him a tot, at the same time making inquiries as to the time he had left the camp; and I found out he had not been absent more than an hour. So much for the rapidity with which bush fear unnerves a new chum, no matter how strong he is, unless he has the will-power to fight against it. On questioning this man, subsequently, he told me he had only strolled into the bush for a few minutes, then tried to find the waggons, had failed to do so, started running, and remembered no more. Fortunately he had run in a circle that crossed the road; had he circled in the other direction, nothing could have saved him, and another case of the bush having claimed a white man's life would have been registered. Now anyone would think that one experience of that sort would have been enough for that man, but it was not, for, some time afterwards, he again went off by himself, and again got lost. At this time we were trekking through very rough country, full of steep, high granite kopjes, and, notwithstanding my strict orders to the contrary, he left the waggons, and went into the bush alone. On his absence that night being reported to me, I took a party of colonial blacks with a couple of Mashonas and ascended a big kopje, at the foot of which we were outspanned, and from that height examined the country. It was not long before I spotted a fire, about two miles away, that was evidently a white man's fire; so I at once had an answering fire lit, and carefully took the bearings of the one I saw. At daybreak I sent a party of men, under an experienced old hand, to bring in the straggler. They reached the place and found the remains of the fire, but he had gone. Not content with his first folly, the stupid fellow had evidently tried to find his way back to us, and lost himself again. For two days we looked for him, and on the third the late Mr Alfred Beit, who was travelling up to Mashonaland, brought him into my camp, having come across him, in a dazed condition, quite by chance, some miles back on the road. You may depend that the reception he got from me was a very warm one, and that I took most effectual precautions to prevent him leaving the waggons again. CHAPTER VII THE NON-COM.'S REVENGE, OR THE CURATE AND THE SNAKE I was proceeding up-country in South Africa with a small party of troopers and led horses. The day before I was to start the bishop came to me and said: "One of my young men has to go up to headquarters. Do you mind taking him with you? He is quite new to the country and, as he is not well off, he can't afford the heavy coach fare. You are taking up led horses. He tells me he can ride a little, and you would be doing a very great kindness if you would take him."