tarted from his own place and come
right on from there without calling on me again--and I hoped that he
might have some further news for me. I asked him casually how his father
was getting on.

"Right enough," he said, blowing a cloud of smoke out of his mouth.
"Some days you wouldn't think there was a thing wrong with him. He'll
talk pretty lucidly at times, but it isn't anything that can be of any
use to us. He doesn't seem to have taken much notice of the position of
the valley, he apparently thought at the time that it would be very
simple to pick it up again, and I fancy that Bradby must have confirmed
him in that view. He couldn't have taken into account the way they had
twisted about in the mountains. It's the simplest thing in the world to
lose yourself here, the more so if you're confident you know your way."

"You've about struck it there," I said. "I just want to give you a
little piece of advice, and I hope you won't take it amiss. I don't want
to talk about this expedition any more than I can help for two reasons.
One's this: I don't wish to cause Miss Drummond any more uneasiness than
is absolutely necessary. You know as well as I do that there's a big
chance of the lot of us being wiped out just about the time we get
within sight of the end. I wouldn't be surprised if they let us walk
into a trap and finished us at their leisure. As for the other
reason--well, it's never safe to say that you're alone anywhere. If we
raise our voices above whispers here we might be giving away valuable
information. So just let us keep watch on our tongues. More hopes have
been ruined and more chances of success spoilt by gabbling tongues than
by any other dozen causes all rolled together."

"I can quite understand that," Cumshaw said, between puffs at his pipe.
It was one of those neat little affairs with a round bowl, a
spick-and-span pipe that had burnt an even color and that shone as
brightly as the day he bought it. My pipe was a sorrier article; it was
battered and blackened, and one side of the bowl was down beneath the
level of the other, showing that it had been lighted oftener with a
blazing brand than with the orthodox matches. In a way it was like its
owner; it had been tested by fire and had survived the test. If I were
philosophical--but then I wasn't, and that's about all there is to it.

"I didn't go to Landsborough," Cumshaw said after a pause. "I missed my
train at Ararat, and so I came on to Great West