“Wait,” she said, and ran away to come back within the minute with the watchman’s lantern. “Poor old Mike’s hiding beyond in the blacksmith shop, scared trembling at the lie he’s thinking he’s got to tell. Don’t sit up, Davie; you might be bleeding to death.” David was groping again, and this time, out of the ripped pocket of the brown coat he fished an engineer’s field-note book. Then he knew why there was no blood, and why the body area behind the pocket was as painful as if it had been beaten with a hammer. Lushing’s shot had been a glancing one, and the thick note-book had turned it aside. There was little left of the book save the perforated leather cover and a mass of torn leaves. “The fellows who carried me off must have been pretty badly rattled, not to have found out that I wasn’t even scratched,” he commented. “’Tis no wonder. When Mike brought me here, the doctor himself would have said you were dead. There was no breath in you at all, and your heart had stopped entirely.” “What became of Lushing?” “’Tis little I know, or care--the black dog! Mike says they told him you’d half killed him.” “I think I meant to,” said David soberly. “And after this, I suppose I’ll have to kill him--or let him kill me. But that’s a future. He knows what he’s got to do if he wants to keep on living. Where are my boots?” She found the boots with the help of the lantern and gave them to him. He put them on, though the effort, and the lacing of them, made him grit his teeth and swear. “What did they want to take my boots off for?” he growled. “Don’t you know?” she asked. “’Tis that way in the camps. They wouldn’t be letting anybody die with his boots on, if they could help it.” “Rotten superstition!” he complained, and swore again. The woman heard wonderingly. “’Tis you that have changed, Davie, till I’d hardly be knowing you,” she said. “Yes; I’ve changed. And so have you, Judith. Are you living with Dargin?” “I am not!” “But from what they tell me, you might as well be. You’ve taken help from him.” “And if I have; ’tis nothing I’ve taken that an honest woman might not take.” “You’re telling me the truth?” “I am. When did I ever lie to you, Davie?” “Never,” he conceded. But the main question was yet untouched. “I know how you came here to Powder Can--Plegg told me,” he went on bluntly. “It’s no place for you, here in Powder Can. You know that, don’t you?” “Where would I be going, then?”