that I would not see what was in her eyes.

"Can't we even be friends?" she said, with a queer little catch in her
words.

Something snapped in my head at that, and the words I had been holding
back all the evening came to my lips in a rush of speech.

"I didn't mean you to take it that way," I said desperately. "I wouldn't
shake hands because ... that's not what I want. It's too stand-offish.
I'm going to do more than forgive, and we're going to me more than
friends, if you still want me."

"You know I want you," she said softly with her head bowed shyly and the
blushes rising in her cheeks.

I took her in my arms and kissed her.

CHAPTER II.

OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY.

Once we had definitely fixed the date of our departure we lost no time
in making ready. As the days went by I began to see more and more
clearly that it was just as well I had thrown in my lot with Moira and
young Cumshaw. Neither of them had the least idea of organisation, and
they seemed to think that things just happened of their own accord.
Moira couldn't see anything else but the glamor and romance of the
adventure, and I found that, for all his cleverness, Albert Cumshaw did
not know what was essential to the expedition and what wasn't.

"We can't start off like a picnic party," I said to them on one
occasion, "and just wander on until we come to a likely spot. We've got
to have everything planned out right down to the last box of matches and
the last cartridge."

Cumshaw drew a deep breath. "Cartridges!" he said, "Are you talking
figuratively?"

"No," I answered. "I'm speaking literally. It might yet be the case of
the last cartridge. You must remember that, even if we get the gold and
come back here in safety, we're still not out of the wood. We're not
safe until our friends the enemy are removed from our paths for ever."

"You mean that they must be killed?" Moira demanded.

"I don't mean anything of the kind," I answered. "As a matter of fact
I've got a perfect horror of killing people. It makes such a mess, and
I'm naturally a rather tidy person."

Cumshaw laughed softly, but Moira bit her lip, though she made no reply
to what I had said.

"Now, while we're talking about it," I ran on, "I just want to impress
on you the fact that we aren't going off into the bush--not the kind of
bush that you read about in books, where it's all scrub and myall blacks
and things like that. Most of the time we'll be within coo-ee