searchlight on the cliff ahead.
"There's a path yonder."

"And which shack, I wonder?"

"There's a light in only one."

Frank worked his stiffened face to relieve the feeling of cold
contorted rubber and followed Kenny up the path. Light glimmered dimly
through the jungle of frost upon the shack window. Fronded whitely by
the sleet, the panes loomed out of the dark like an incandescent series
of camera plates, bizarre and oriental. Frank shivered in the wind.

Doctor Cole opened the door. Beyond in the rude room of the shack a
lamp flared smokily.

"Brian?" said Kenny, his color gone.

"Why," said Doctor Cole, "his pulse is a lot stronger, Mr. O'Neill, and
he complains now of pain--"

"That means?"

"It means, Kenny," said Frank Barrington, "that he has passed on
normally to the stage of reaction." But his keen, intelligent eyes
sought Doctor Cole with a furtive lifting of his brows and asked a
question.

"Not a sign," said the little doctor gladly. "If anything he's a shade
too wide awake. And irritable. I've been setting his leg--"

Kenny wheeled fiercely.

"His leg!" he said. "His leg!"

"I'm sorry," stammered the doctor. "I--I quite forgot you didn't
know. . . . Broken between the knee and the hip," he added, turning to
Barrington. "I thought it merely paresis of the muscles until--"

"Where is he?" put in Kenny sharply. "What room?"

"There are only two rooms here," said Doctor Cole. "The stairway's
yonder."

"Just a minute, Kenny." Frank checked him with a gesture. "I'm going
up first with Doctor Cole."

Kenny groaned.

"Sit down," said Frank kindly. "Where's some brandy? Thank you,
Doctor. Now, Kenny, listen, please. The first risk to Brian's life is
past. I mean death from shock. He's not drowsy and he's feeling pain.
His leg, in the face of other possibilities, is merely painful. But I
must look at his head--"

"Frank, darlin'," said Kenny patiently, "I brought you up here to order
us all around. Go to it."

He flung himself into a chair by the stove and drowsing after a while
in a reactive sweep of exhaustion, awakened with a terrified jerk. A
boy was banking the red-hot stove, his white face like and yet
unlike--Joan's.

"Mr. O'Neill," he blurted with a boyish sob, "I--I did it. I was
driving the mule-cart up the path. Grogan told me not to but I--I
coaxed Tony. And when some earth crumbled ahead I jerked back--too
quickly--and scared the mule. I've