The Last of the Chiefs: A Story of the Great Sioux War

Neville-Smith’s theory, arrived at after careful thought, was that the supreme governing powers of the universe had taken a sudden dislike to Bray Lench. He refused to listen to any Other. “Look at the evidence,” he said, as we sat over our coffee. “Jimmy couldn’t come. Got the flu. So far, nothing to grumble about. Anybody might get the flu, even our only decent three-quarter on the eve of our big match. Very well. Then young Thorn goes and falls off a ladder. Sprains his ankle. On top of that, Giles, our best forward, trips over his feet as he’s going to church and crocks his wrist. And on top of that, Somers, who’s pretty nearly as useful in the pack as Giles, gets a spill from his bicycle and has to go to bed for a week. It’s spite, that’s what it is. Petty spite.” “What are you going to do about it?” I asked. He took the question literally, and instead of explaining how he was going to get back at Fate, told me how he proposed to reconstruct the team, which I had heard before