McElroy sat up and looked around.
One of the first things he encountered was the face of the cavalier,
still smiling and looking very much as it had looked in the dawn.
Like that encounter, too, De Courtenay was the first to speak in this.
"Aha, my fighter of the H. B. C.," he laughed from his seat against a
towering maple, "have your laggard wits come in from wool-gathering?"
He, too, was more comfortably bound, and McElroy noticed that there
were little rubbed creases in the sleeves of the gay blue coat where
the numbing bonds had cut. The sparkling spirit was as high in his
handsome face as it had been that long past morning morning by the
well. The factor wondered if there was in heaven or earth anything with
power to dim it.
He was to see, and marvel at, the test.
"Aye," he answered the cheerful query; "it has been a weary day,
M'sieu, it would seem, with my senses drifting out and in at ragged
intervals of which I have only vague impressions. How has it fared with
you?"
"Much as another day. There has been plenty to see and enjoy, even from
under the feet of our hasty friends of the paddles."
"Enjoy! Holy Mother! Have you not been thinking over your sins,
M'sieu?"
"Sins? I have none.
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