to dust." Elvesdon chucked him his pouch.

The two girls were busy putting away the things. They had rejected
offers of help.

"We know where to pack the things and you don't," Edala had said. "You
sit still and smoke, then you'll shoot all the better for it."

"Thanks, Miss Thornhill," answered Elvesdon, remembering his double
miss.

"Oh, I didn't mean anything, really I didn't. Never mind. There'll be
plenty of chances of retrieving your character."

"Won't you come and stand near me at the next _voer-ly_?" he said.
"Then you'll have all the fun of being an eye-witness."

She laughed.

"Yes, you'd have to be on your mettle then. Well I'll come and
encourage you. I don't think I'll shoot just yet, myself. I believe
I've ever so slight a touch of headache. Later, perhaps--when it gets
cooler."

Then Prior had begun to express unbounded concern. Why of course Miss
Thornhill ought to keep quiet, and as much out of the sun as possible.
A headache! Fancy that! and no wonder, since it had been so jolly hot--
and so on, and so on--till his official chief experienced a savage
desire to kick him soundly, in that the blundering idiot was drawing
attention to a little arrangement he was wanting to bring off quite
unostentatiously.

However, that had soon passed, and now Elvesdon lay there, puffing out
smoke, and in full enjoyment of life and this situation therein. He was
not overmuch inclined to talk, either; a deficiency for which his
subordinate seemed abundantly inclined to make up. He was watching the
girl, as she moved about; the erect poise of the gold-crowned head, the
swift play of the thick lashes, the straight glance of the clear blue
eyes, the full throat, the mellow, clear, whole-hearted laugh.
Everything about her, every movement, so natural and unstudied; the
flash of each smile which lighted up her face--ah, all this had had too
large a share in his dreaming and waking hours of late.

Then he found himself comparing her with Evelyn Carden. The latter--
sweet, gracious, reposeful--would have appealed--appealed powerfully to
many men; but there was no comparison between the two, decided this one.
He looked at Thornhill, now as he had done since the doctor's
revelation, in a new light. How could it be true? How could such a man
as this have been by any means led into the committal of a cold-blooded
murder. No. The idea could not be entertained--not for one single
moment could it, he de