"Well, Sir, we struck the General on his beat--Vrelegen it was--and our
crowd opened with the usual compliments at two thousand yards. Van Zyl
shook himself into his greasy old saddle and says, 'Now we shall be quite
happy, Mr. Zigler. No more trekking. Joost twelve miles a day till the
apricots are ripe.'

"Then we hitched on to his outposts, and vedettes, and cossack-picquets,
or whatever they was called, and we wandered around the veldt arm in arm
like brothers.

"The way we worked lodge was this way. The General, he had his breakfast
at 8:45 A.M. to the tick. He might have been a Long Island commuter. At
8:42 A.M. I'd go down to the Thirty-fourth Street ferry to meet him--I
mean I'd see the Zigler into position at two thousand (I began at three
thousand, but that was cold and distant)--and blow him off to two full
hoppers--eighteen rounds--just as they were bringing in his coffee. If his
crowd was busy celebrating the anniversary of Waterloo or the last royal
kid's birthday, they'd open on me with two guns (I'll tell you about them
later on), but if they were disengaged they'd all stand to their horses
and pile on the ironmongery, and washers, and typewriters, and five weeks'
grub, and in half an hour they'd sail out after me and the rest of Van
Zyl's boys; lying down and firing till 11:45 A.M. or maybe high noon. Then
we'd go from labour to refreshment, resooming at 2 P.M. and battling till
tea-time. Tuesday and Friday was the General's moving days. He'd trek
ahead ten or twelve miles, and we'd loaf around his flankers and exercise
the ponies a piece. Sometimes he'd get hung up in a drift--stalled
crossin' a crick--and we'd make playful snatches at his wagons. First time
that happened I turned the Zigler loose with high hopes, Sir; but the old
man was well posted on rearguards with a gun to 'em, and I had to haul her
out with three mules instead of six. I was pretty mad. I wasn't looking