around these clothes, and if I can find it, perhaps you can cut the
leather."

As I gave her the knife she turned it over, examining it with a peculiar
expression, bewilderment rather than surprise. But she said nothing. She
set to work deftly, and in a few minutes the bag dropped free.

"That's better," I declared, sitting up. "Now, if you can pin my sleeve
to my coat, it will support the arm so we can get away from here."

"The pin might give," she objected, "and the jerk would be terrible."
She looked around, puzzled; then she got up, coming back in a minute
with a draggled, partly scorched sheet. This she tore into a large
square, and after she had folded it, she slipped it under the broken arm
and tied it securely at the back of my neck.

The relief was immediate, and, picking up the sealskin bag, I walked
slowly beside her, away from the track.

The first act was over: the curtain fallen. The scene was "struck."

CHAPTER IX. THE HALCYON BREAKFAST

We were still dazed, I think, for we wandered like two troubled
children, our one idea at first to get as far away as we could from the
horror behind us. We were both bareheaded, grimy, pallid through the
grit. Now and then we met little groups of country folk hurrying to the
track: they stared at us curiously, and some wished to question us.
But we hurried past them; we had put the wreck behind us. That way lay
madness.

Only once the girl turned and looked behind her. The wreck was
hidden, but the smoke cloud hung heavy and dense. For the first time I
remembered that my companion had not been alone on the train.

"It is quiet here," I suggested. "If you will sit down on the bank I
will go back and make some inquiries. I've been criminally thoughtless.
Your traveling companion--"

She interrupted me, and something of her splendid poise was gone.
"Please don't go back," she said. "I am afraid it would be of no use.
And I don't want to be left alone."

Heaven knows I did not want her to be alone. I was more than content to
walk along beside her aimlessly, for any length of time. Gradually, as
she lost the exaltation of the moment, I was gaining my normal condition
of mind. I was beginning to realize that I had lacked the morning grace
of a shave, that I looked like some lost hope of yesterday, and that
my left shoe pinched outrageously. A man does not rise triumphant above
such handicaps. The girl, for all her disordered hair and the crumpled
linen of