They then crawled along
till they could look down into the road. They were some time away, and
returned with the news that they had seen below them on the road a patch
of blood and the mark of a body in the mud, another step they said had
gone down to the water, and had not come back. Crawling along by the
edge of the bank they found some empty cartridges. They said whoever had
been up there had crawled once or twice to the edge above the sunken
road where the other was lying, and that he had then gone back from the
river and afterwards down into the road. A little farther there seemed
to have been a fall, and then two men with big feet came to the spot,
and, they asserted, carried the one who had fallen there down to the
other; but they could not see what had happened then, for it was evident
that the Boers were in force on the other side of the river, and they
dared not go down farther to examine the tracks. Enough had been seen,
however, to show that you must both have been wounded. It was pretty
certain that you had not been killed, for if so the Boers would not have
troubled to carry your bodies across the drift. Now, Chris, let us hear
your story."
"If you don't mind, Captain Brookfield," Chris said with a smile, "I
will put off telling it for another half-hour.
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