then, for I'm too far gone to walk."

"I think it can be managed," said Grantham. "At any rate we'll try."

Turning to the little Shan he despatched him with a message to Handiman,
and when the other had disappeared, knelt down beside the tall man and
set to work to examine his injured foot. There could be no doubt that it
was in a very serious condition. Tramping through the jungle he had
managed to poison it, and had been unable to apply the necessary
remedies. Obtaining some water from the stream Grantham bathed it
tenderly, and then bound it up as well as he could with his
handkerchief.

"That's the best I can do for you for the present," he said. "We must
leave it as it is, and, when we get you to the station, we will see what
else can be managed."

He looked up and saw the little man's eyes watched him intently. There
was a look of almost dog-like affection in them for his companion, that
went to the young soldier's heart.

"By Jove," he said, "I'm sorry for you fellows. You must have suffered
agonies. The Chinese are devils. But yours is not the first case we have
heard of. We only come up here for a month at a time, but the man we
relieved told us a strange tale about another poor beggar who came into
the station some two months ago. He had been wandering in the jungle,
and was nearly at death's-door."

The blind man gave a start, while the little man seized his hand and
made a number of rapid movements upon it with his fingers.

"My friend wants to know if you are aware of that man's name?" he said.
"We lost a companion, and he thinks that he may be the man. For
Heaven's sake tell us what you know. You have no idea what it means
to us."

"Since you are so interested in him I am sorry to have to say that I do
not know very much. You see he had very little to do with us. As I have
said, he turned up while our predecessors were here. From what I heard
about him from Gregory, he gathered that he was a tall, thin man, who
had come through from Pekin by way of Yunnan."

"Are you sure it was from Yunnan?"

"That's what they told me," said Grantham. "Since then I have heard that
he was on his way from Pekin to Burmah, and that his coolies had robbed
him of all he possessed."

"You don't happen to remember his name, I suppose!"

The blind man tried to ask the question calmly, but his voice failed
him.

"As far as I remember his name was George Bertram," Grantham answered.

There was a pause for a few