"Kill Slade first. That little villain gives me the horrors. I believe
the soul of the last bloodhound I shot has been reincarnated in him."

"All right, Mr. Mason," returned the sergeant, placidly, "if we have to
fight I'll make sure of Slade at once. Is there anybody else you'd like
specially to have killed?"

"No thank you, Sergeant. I don't hate any of the others, and I suppose
they'd have dropped the chase long ago if it hadn't been for this fellow
whom you call Slade. Now, I think I'll lie quiet, while you watch."

"Very good, sir. I'll tell you everything I can see. They're passing
over the hill out of sight, and if they return I won't fail to let you
know."

Sergeant Whitley, a man of vast physical powers, hardened by the long
service of forest and plain, was not weary at all, and, in the dusk,
he looked down with sympathy and pity at the lad who had closed his eyes.
He divined the nature of the ordeal through which he had gone. Dick's
face, still badly swollen from the bites of the mosquitoes, showed all
the signs of utter exhaustion. The sergeant could see, despite the
darkness, that it was almost the face of the dead, and he knew that happy
chance had brought him in the moment of Dick's greatest need.

He ceased to whisper, because Dick, without intending it, had gone to
sleep again. Then the wary veteran scouted in a circle about their
refuge, but did not discover the presence of an enemy.

He sat down near the sleeping lad, with his rifle between his knees,
and watched the moon come out. Owing to his wilderness experience he had