e pickle
as a result of his haste! They were miles from Nowhere, he knew, but
that did not worry him much; he was used to walking--had walked that
very piece of track with the Rutland party not so long ago. However,
there was the girl----

He scrambled to his feet, put his hands on either side of his mouth and
shouted. The unexpected loudness of the call startled him a little; it
went echoing around and in the dead solitude of the low-lying hills
seemed to carry for miles. But although he listened intently there was
no answer other than the echo which soon drifted far away and got lost
somewhere. The silence returned like a heavy blanket; even the little
birds listened in fear.

He called again. Again there was the echo; then the heavy silence.

"Funny," grumbled Phil. "She's either mighty badly hurt or she's
deliberately hiding on me. Where are you, Miss Wil----Miss Lawson, I
mean?" he shouted.

"--awson, I mean--mean," mocked the double echo. The bellow flung away
to distant cadences which settled softly into the night mysteries.

There was dankness in the air and the smell of skunk cabbage from a
short stretch of swamp and brule directly opposite. Through the velvet
gloom the fire-flies trailed. Rocky ridges were scattered around in
the background and high on the right was a huge rounded pile of rock
with a few white-stemmed birches clinging to it for all the world like
thinning gray hairs on an almost-bald head. It was too dark to see the
birches clearly, but the ex-chainman for the Rutland survey party knew
they were there and how they looked; he had seen hundreds of such
growths. Behind the big rock formation probably there was a lake.

Kendrick snatched up some pebbles and hurled them into the underbrush
in anger at those pesky little birds with their mournful monotony of
note. He knew she could not be far away and started down the track
slowly, scrutinizing the ground on each side. He found her at last,
lying very still among the bog reeds.

Gently he lifted her out onto the dry sandy ballast, greatly alarmed at
her unconsciousness, and went in search of water. He located a tiny
pool just off the right-of-way and realized for the first time that he
was hatless. Hastily he sat down and removing one of his boots, dipped
it in the water and came hobbling back with it as fast as he could go
in an attempt to reach her before it had leaked out. He was so intent
upon this that he was quite clo