s of a bird in the dawning, "you don't need to ask me why did these
things. For you know--you know. It was simply and only because I loved
you."
"Heaven knows why," he said, as he bent to kiss her.
"Heavens knows," she answered, and softly laughed as she surrendered her
lips to his.
The Secret Service Man
I
A TIGHT PLACE
"Shoulder to shoulder, boys! Give it 'em straight! There's no going back
this journey." And the speaker slapped his thigh and laughed.
He was penned in a hot corner with a handful of grinning little
Goorkhas, as ready and exultant as himself. He had no earthly business
in that particular spot. But he had won his way there in a hand-to-hand
combat, which had rendered that bit of ground the most desirable
abiding-place on the face of the earth. And being there he meant to
stay.
He was established with the inimitable effrontery of British insolence.
He had pushed on through the dark, fired by the enthusiasm which is born
of hard resistence. It had been no slight matter, but neither he nor his
men were to be easily dismayed. Moreover, their patience had been
severely tried for many tedious hours, and the removal of the curb had
gone to their heads like wine.
Young Derrick Rose, war correspondent, was hot of head and ready of
hand. He had a knack also of getting into tight places and extricating
himself therefrom with amazing agility; which knack served to procure
for him the admiration of his friends and the respect of his enemies. It
was his first Frontier campaign, but it was not apparently destined to
be his last, for he bore a charmed life. And he went his way with a
cheery recklessness that seemed its own security.
On the present occasion he had planted himself, with a serene assumption
of authority, at the head of a handful of Goorkhas who had been pressed
forward too far by an over-zealous officer in the darkness, and had lost
their leader in consequence.
Derrick had stumbled on the group and had forthwith taken upon himself
to direct them to a position which, with a good deal of astuteness, he
had marked out in his own mind earlier in the day as a desirable
acquisition.
There had been a hand-to-hand scuffle in the darkness, and then the
tribesmen had fallen back, believing themselves overwhelmed by superior
numbers.
Derrick and his Goorkhas had promptly taken possession of the rocky
eminence which was the object of their desire, and now prepared, with
commen
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