a
fish, and the wan streams of the Laver, swirling between bare grey
banks, were as icy to the eye as the sharp gusts of hail from the
north-east were to the fingers. I cast mechanically till I grew weary,
and then with an empty creel and a villainous temper set myself to
trudge the two miles of bent to the inn. Some distant ridges of hill
stood out snow-clad against the dun sky, and half in anger, half in
dismal satisfaction, I told myself that fishing to-morrow would be as
barren as to-day.

At the inn door a tall man was stamping his feet and watching a servant
lifting rodcases from a dog-cart. Hooded and wrapped though he was, my
friend Thirlstone was an unmistakable figure in any landscape. The
long, haggard, brown face, with the skin drawn tightly over the
cheek-bones, the keen blue eyes finely wrinkled round the corners with
staring at many suns, the scar which gave his mouth a humorous droop to
the right, made up a whole which was not easily forgotten. I had last
seen him on the quay at Funchal bargaining with some rascally boatman
to take him after mythical wild goats in Las Desertas. Before that we
had met at an embassy ball in Vienna, and still earlier at a
hill-station in Persia to which I had been sent post-haste by an
anxious and embarrassed Government. Also I had been at school with
him, in those far-away days when we rode nine stone and dreamed of
cricket averages. He was a soldier of note, who had taken part in two
little wars and one big one; had himself conducted a political mission
through a hard country with some success, and was habitually chosen by
his superiors to keep his eyes open as a foreign attache in our
neighbours' wars. But his fame as a hunter had gone abroad into places
where even the name of the British army is unknown. He was the
hungriest shikari I have ever seen, and I have seen many. If you are
wise you will go forthwith to some library and procure a little book
entitled "Three Hunting Expeditions," by A.W.T. It is a modest work,
and the style is that of a leading article, but all the lore and
passion of the Red Gods are in its pages.

The sitting-room at the inn is a place of comfort, and while Thirlstone
warmed his long back at the fire I sank contentedly into one of the
well-rubbed leather arm-chairs. The company of a friend made the
weather and scarcity of salmon less the intolerable grievance they had
seemed an hour ago than a joke to be laughed at. The landlo