lenly at the river, gray now with the coming dawn.
His dark face was drawn and haggard.

And again Mr. Poynter shot a volley of questions and awaited the
answers with dangerous quiet.

Shaking, Themar refused again to answer. With even more quietness and
courtesy Philip obligingly gave him a final opportunity and finding
Themar white and inexorable, smiled.

"Very well, then," said Mr. Poynter warmly, "I'll take it out of your
hide." Which he proceeded to do with that consummate thoroughness
which characterized his every action, husbanding the strength of his
long, lean arms until a knife appeared in Themar's hand. Then in
deadly silence Mr. Poynter reduced his treacherous assailant to a
battered hulk upon the towpath.

A mule bell tinkled in the quiet.

Upstream on the path between canal and river two mules appeared with a
man slouching heavily behind them. The towline led to a grimy scow
which loomed out of the misty stillness like a heavier drift of the
dawn itself.

"Hello!" Philip hailed the mule driver.

"What's wantin'?" asked the man and halted.

Philip indicated Themar with his foot.

"Here is a gentleman," he explained, "whom I discovered lurking about
my camp a while ago. He showed me his knife and I've mussed him up a
bit."

The mule-driver bent over Themar and sharply scanned the dark, foreign
face.

"One o' them damned black-and-tans, eh?" he growled. "They're too
ready with their knives. What ye goin' to do with him?"

"I'm wondering," shrugged Philip, smoothing his rumpled hair back from
his forehead with the palm of his hand, "if you'll permit me to pay his
passage to a hospital, the farther away, the better."

The mule-driver glanced searchingly at Mr. Poynter's face. Apparently
satisfied, he cupped his mouth with his hands and called "Ho, Jem!"

"Jem" jerked sharply at the tiller and presently the scow scraped the
shore. The mule-driver consigned the care of his mules to Philip and
scrambled down the grassy bank to the edge of the water.

"Where ye want him took?" demanded Jem, scratching a bristling shock of
hair which glimmered through the dawn like a thicket of spikes.

"Well," said Mr. Poynter indifferently, "where are you going?"

Jem named a town many miles away. The mule-driver looked hard again at
Philip.

"Gawd, young feller," he admired, "you're a cool un all right!"

"Take him there," said Philip with the utmost composure. "Deliver him
somewhere a reasona