The answer was a long time coming. The face was bloodlessly grey. From
it a pair of close-set, shallow brown eyes looked shiftily. A tongue ran
back and forth between the colourless lips.

"It's my leg," he said. "I don't know if it's broke. And I'm sort of
bunged up." He looked up sharply. "Oh, I'll be all right," he grunted,
"and don't you fool yourself."

"Did Brodie----?"

The man began to tremble; the hands on his gun shook so that the weapon
veered and wavered uncertainly.

"Yes, rot his soul." He began to curse, at first softly, then with a
strained voice rising into a storm of windy incoherence. Suddenly he
broke off, eyeing King with suspicion upon the surface of his shallow
eyes. "What are you after?"

"I didn't know how badly you were hurt. I came to see if I could lend
you a hand."

"You know I don't mean that. What are you after, here in the mountains?"
His voice was surly with truculence.

King grew angry and burst out bluntly:

"The devil take you, Andy Parker. I wanted to help you. If you don't
take my interference kindly, I'll be on my way."

He turned to be off. Why the man was not already dead from that fall he
did not know. But if the fellow was able to shift for himself, it suited
King well enough. He had business of his own and no desire to step to
one side or another to deal with Swen Brodie or Andy Parker, or with any
man who trailed his luck with such as these. But now Parker called to
him, and in an altered voice, a whine running through the words.

"Hold on, King. I'm hung up here for the night, anyhow. And I ain't got
a bite of grub, and already I'm burning up with thirst. Get me a drink,
will you?"

Without answer, King went to his canvas roll, and Parker, thinking
himself deserted, began to plead noisily. On his knees King opened his
roll, got out a cup, and began to search for water. Above him there were
patches of snow; he found where a trickle of clear cold water ran in a
narrow rivulet, and presently returned to the injured man with a
brimming cup. Parker drank thirstily, demanded more, and sank back with
a long sigh.

"The thing's unlucky, you know, King," he said queerly.

"Is it?" said King coolly. It was like him not to pretend that he did
not know to what Andy Parker's thoughts had flown.

Parker nodded, pursing his lips, and kept on nodding like a broken
automatic toy. At the end he jerked his head up and muttered:

"There's been the devil's luck on it for more