A Frontier Mystery

The dog stopped short, hackles erect, and fangs bared, emitting a series of deep-toned growls which to the object of his hostility should have been disconcerting, to put it mild...

It is a strange, and I suppose a wholesomely-humiliating thing that we are appointed to go through life learning how little we know ourselves. Here was I, a man no longer young,...

We crossed Umzinyati above where the Blood River joins it. This was something of a round but I didn't want to pass through Sirayo's section of the country; for it so happened I...

Aida looked none the worse for her adventures as she came forth into the clear freshness of the morning. The lethargic effect of the drug seemed to have left her entirely, and s...

Inspector Manvers was a shrewd as well as a smart officer, and it was not long before he had obtained from the two frightened women who had been made prisoners, sufficient infor...

"Shut up, you brute," growled Falkner, for this sudden interruption had, as he put it, made him jump. But the dog heeded him not, as he sprang up and rushed down the steps still...

From the moment that Aida Sewin and I had become engaged life was, to me, almost too good to live. As I have said, I was no longer young, and now it seemed to me that my life up...

I had named, by his native name, a neighbour of mine, who farmed some way down the river. Though in actual fact he was rather too far off to be termed exactly a neighbour. His r...

Suddenly Arlo, who had been trotting along placidly beside the waggons stopped short, looking backward, and emitting low growls, which soon changed to a deep-toned, booming bark...

I followed his glance. A dark crowd was swarming over the ridge half a mile in front, and in the then rising sun I could make out the glint of assegai blades. That was nothing,...

A large, well-built Zulu kraal is to my mind a picturesque and symmetrical object with its perfect double circle of ring fences enclosing the yellow domes of the grass huts, and...

The protest came from Miss Sewin, for now an angry muttering had arisen among the young men, and the rattle of assegai hafts--this time in ominous earnest--mingled with the hoar...

Evening was closing in wet and gloomy. The lowering clouds swept along the high ground which shot in the great hollow, causing the cliffs to seem three times their real height i...

I put the letter into my pocket, flung on a mackintosh and dived outside again. The rain was still coming down in a steady pour, and the cloud of vapour rising from the horse's...

We stood there--we four--gazing into each other's livid faces. Then the Major broke down. Sinking to the ground he covered his face with his hands and sobbed. I broke fiercely a...

As I rode down the rugged bush path I began to undergo a very unwonted and withal uneasy frame of mind. For instance what on earth had possessed me to take such an interest in t...

Soon trade became brisk. I had the waggons partly off-loaded, and by dint of stretching a large sail across both of them formed an impromptu store in which the goods were piled....

When two people, trekking together beyond the confines of civilisation fall out, the situation becomes unpleasant. If each has his own waggon, well and good, they can part compa...

I had completed my purchase of the farm, and was well satisfied with my bargain. It was a nice place, and the homestead was in good repair and very picturesquely situated, comma...

There was no sign of life on the part of my guests, as I rolled out at early dawn and went down to the waterhole in the kloof for a splash. When I returned the Major and his nep...

It was hot. Away on the skyline the jagged peaks of Kahlamba rose in a shimmer of haze. In front and below, the same shimmer was upon the great sweep of green and gold bush. The...

Tyingoza, you see, was enigmatical, but then he often was, especially if he thought I was trying to get behind his mind--as he put it. Clearly he was not going to commit himself...

I have seen a good many astonished natives in my time but never a more astonished one than my boy Tom that evening after supper, when staggering to my feet and lurching unsteadi...

"Near thing? By Jove, I believe you!" echoed Falkner, who had halted, considerably out of wind and temper; the latter not improved by certain scarcely smothered and half-averted...

There she stood--Aida, my love. I could see every line of the sweet pale face, turned full towards me in the moonlight, but it wore a half-dazed look as that of one who walks an...

It seemed as though I had slept five minutes when I started wide awake, listening. There was a faint sound of scratching upon the window pane. Then it ceased, to be followed by...

Such was the dialogue that came to my ears very early on the morning following the events just recorded. The voices were right in front of my window and I chuckled, for I knew t...

"Ha, Glanton! Glad to see you!" cried the Major, shaking me heartily by the hand. "Why, I was beginning to wonder when we should see you again. Was afraid you had started again...

When Dolf Norbury learned that another white man was coming to Majendwa's country on trading intent, his first remark was that he was damned if he should. This statement he foll...

Nothing could exceed the warmth and cordiality of the reception I experienced at the hands of the rest of the family. I might have been one of themselves so rejoiced they all se...

I envied Falkner as he parted company with me, for he wanted to go straight home, and my store was all out of his way in the other direction. We had returned by the same route a...

Such were but few of the opprobrious phrases, rolled forth alternately, in the clear sonorous Zulu, from alternate sides of the river, which flowed laughing and bubbling on in t...

For all the brave way in which Aida had taken her grisly experience--and the full gruesomeness of her peril and narrow escape had been borne in upon her, especially during the t...

"Well, there was nothing for either of us to brag about in the way we recovered Arlo," I said. "If the King's impi hadn't happened along in the nick of time I own frankly we mig...

"You know I did not," I answered, with quite unnecessary vehemence. "Why I was only too proud and flattered that you should have consulted me at all. But, of course it was all s...