. "Wha--ght?" he persisted desperately.
"Wh--ere?--For--Heaven's sake--wha--ght's the matter--with us?"

Solicitously little Eve Edgarton lifted a soggy magazine-page to the
lantern's warm, curving cheek.

"Why--we're in my cave," she confided. "In my very own--cave--you
know--that I was headed for--all the time. We got--sort of--struck by
lightning," she started to explain. "We--"

"Struck by--lightning?" gasped Barton. Mentally he started to jump up.
But physically nothing moved. "My God! I'm paralyzed!" he screamed.

"Oh, no--really--I don't think so," crooned little Eve Edgarton.

With the faintest possible tinge of reluctance she put down her
papers, picked up the lantern, and, crawling over to where Barton
lay, sat down cross-legged again on the ground beside him, and began
with mechanically alternate fist and palm to rubadubdub and
thump-thump-thump and stroke-stroke-stroke his utterly helpless
body.

"Oh--of--course--you've had--an awfully close call!" she drummed
resonantly upon his apathetic chest. "But I've seen--three lightning
people--a lot worse off than you!" she kneaded reassuringly into his
insensate neck-muscles. "And--they--came out of it--all right--after a
few days!" she slapped mercilessly into his faintly conscious sides.

Very slowly, very sluggishly, as his circulation quickened again, a
horrid suspicion began to stir in Barton's mind; but it took him a
long time to voice the suspicion in anything as loud and public as
words.

"Miss--Edgarton!" he plunged at last quite precipitately. "Miss
Edgarton! Do I seem to have--any shirt on?"

"No, you don't seem to, exactly, Mr. Barton," conceded little Eve
Edgarton. "And your skin--"

From head to foot Barton's whole body strained and twisted in a futile
effort to raise himself to at least one elbow. "Why, I'm stripped to
my waist!" he stammered in real horror.

"Why, yes--of course," drawled little Eve Edgarton. "And your skin--"
Imperturbably as she spoke she pushed him down flat on the ground
again and began, with her hands edged vertically like two slim boards,
to slash little blissful gashes of consciousness and pain into his
frigid right arm. "You see--I had to take both your shirts," she
explained, "and what was left of your coat--and all of my coat--to
make a soft, strong rope to tie round under your arms so the horse
could drag you."

"Did the roan drag me--'way up here?" groaned Barton a bit hazily.

With the faintest possible