ain, and
his clothing was soaked. She laid her hand against his face and found it
hot. His eyes met hers with no sign of recognition.

"That's all right," he muttered, rolling his head from side to side,
"nobody denies it. Run your own business; but I want my clothes. Damn
it, I'm freezing!"

His teeth chattered and he shook his fist in an invisible face.
Involuntarily, from a sense of helplessness, she looked vaguely about as
if seeking aid.

Here, in the woods, was protection from the wind, but the branches aloft
were moving and tossing from the fury of the gale above. The usual
murmuring of the pines had become a roar. Great drops of rain, shaken
from this surging vault, fell in fitful but copious showers. This
constant roar,--not unlike the ocean in a gale,--the sombre light, the
helpless and perhaps dying man before her, the chill and mortal dampness
of all and everything around, for an instant congealed her courage and
took away her strength. But this she fought against. All her powers of
persuasion, and all her strength, she employed to get him on his feet.
Pats, although wild in speech and reckless in gesture, was docile and
willing to obey. The weakness of his own legs, however, threatened to
bring his rescuer and himself to the ground. And, all the time, a
constant flow of crazy speech and foolish, feeble song.

Half-way to the cottage he stopped, wrenched his arm from her grasp and
demanded, with a frown: "I say; you expect decent things of a woman,
don't you?"

"Yes, of course." And she nodded assent, trying to lead him on again.
But he pushed her away and would have fallen with the effort had she not
caught him in time.

"Well, there's this about it," he continued, trying feebly to shake his
arm from her hands yet staggering along where she led, "I'm not stuck on
that woman or any other. I'm not in that line of business. Do I look
like a one-eyed ass?"

"No, no, not at all!" And, gently, she urged him forward.

"Because three or four fools are gone over her, she thinks everybody
else--oh! who cares, anyway? Let her think!"

It was a zigzag journey. He reeled and plunged, dragging her in all
directions; and so yielding were his knees that she doubted if they
could bear him to the house. Once, when seemingly on the point of a
collapse, he muttered, in a confidential tone: "This hauling guns under
a frying sun does give you a thirst, hey? Say, am I right, or not?"

"Yes, yes, you are right. Come a