ed.

"It hasn't improved your temper, my lad," I said under my breath. Aloud
I remarked: "We're all in much the same boat. Miss Drummond's had a
stiff time of it, and I've got all my bruises where you can't see them,
but I can assure you that they hurt all the same."

At the mention of Moira a shadow passed over his face. Frankly I could
not quite understand his attitude towards her. At first I was rather of
the opinion that he was in love with her, but latterly I hadn't been so
sure, for he had had the decency to suppress his feelings once he found
how the land lay. The mere mention of her name calmed him down
wonderfully. He even seemed a little ashamed of his outbursts of temper.

"I might have remembered that I wasn't the only one in the party," he
said. "But then I came a fearful cropper, and on top of it I've been out
in the rain all night."

"We were a little luckier." I told him. "We found an overhang and that
kept off most of the rain. All the same I wouldn't mind a chance of
drying myself."

"And we're likely to get that," he said with some asperity. "All our
goods are God knows how many miles behind. I've got a box of matches in
my pocket, but they're just about as useful here as they would be at the
bottom of the sea."

"Come now," I said, "it's not as bad as all that. We've got a lady to
take care of, and we've got to shuffle our brains about a bit and see
what we can do. We'll never get anywhere by standing still railing at
our fate."

"Well, you're in charge, Carstairs," he told me. "It's up to you."

"It is," I admitted, "and as the first step towards success I might
point out to you that the mist is lifting."

He wheeled round at that with greater agility than I expected, seeing
that by his own account he was still feeling pretty dicky. The mist was
lifting in truth, and yellow spears of sunlight were thrusting
themselves through like hat pins run through cloth.

"It'll be the better part of half an hour before the place's clear," he
asserted, with one eye cocked at the sky and the other watching me.

"In the meanwhile we'd better go back to Miss Drummond and set her mind
at rest," I suggested.

He trudged along at my elbow with a step that lacked its usual buoyancy,
but the sidelong glances I stole at him every now and then showed me
that he was fast recovering his spirits. The bruise on his forehead,
seen now close at hand and in a better light, was not the fearsome thing
I had at first