"Dreadful, sir. I was as bad as a gal. I'm a poor sort o' thing
sometimes, sir. But don't you talk till you feel all right, sir."

"I am beginning to feel as if talking will do me good and spur me back
into being more myself."

"Think so, sir? Well, you know best, sir."

"I think so," said Bracy quietly; "but I shall not be right till I have
had a few hours' sleep."

"Look here, then, sir; you lie down in the sun here on my _poshtin_.
I'll keep watch."

"No! no! Not till night. There, I am getting my strength back. I was
completely stunned, Gedge, and I have been acting like a man walking in
his sleep."

Gedge kept glancing at his officer furtively, and there was an anxious
look in his eyes as he said to himself:

"He's like a fellow going to have a touch of fever. Bit wandering-like,
poor chap! I know what's wrong. I'll ask him."

He did not ask at once, though, for he saw that Bracy was eating the
piece of cake with better appetite, breaking off scraps more frequently;
while the food, simple as it was, seemed to have a wonderfully reviving
effect, and he turned at last to his companion.

"You are not eating, my lad," he said, smiling faintly. "Come, you know
what you have said to me."

"Oh, I'm all right again now, sir; I'm only keeping time with you.
There. Dry bread-cake ain't bad, sir, up here in the mountains, when
you're hungry. Hurt your head a bit--didn't you, sir?"

"No, no," said Bracy more firmly. "My right ankle; that is all. How
horribly sudden it was!"

"Awful, sir; but don't you talk."

"I must now; it does me good, horrible as it all was; but, as I tell
you, I was stunned mentally and bodily, to a great extent. I must have
dropped a great distance into the soft snow upon a slope, and I was a
long time before I could get rid of the feeling of being suffocated. I
was quite buried, I suppose; but at last, in a misty way, I seemed to be
breathing the cold air in great draughts as I lay on the snow, holding
fast to my rifle, which somehow seemed to be the one hope I had of
getting back to you."

"You did a lot of good with it, sir."

"Did I?"

"Course you did, sir. Digging through the snow."

"Oh yes, I remember now," said Bracy, with a sigh. "Yes, I remember
having some idea that the snow hung above me like some enormous wave
curling right over before it broke, and then becoming frozen hard. Then
I remember feeling that I was like one of the rabbits in the sandhil