"We descended into the sound of the beating surf before we found one: and there an impish fancy took me. I had been losing grip on Farrell, and despite my small triumph of that morning, I felt a sudden desire to test him. Pretending that my purpose was only to cross and report, I waded the stream and dodged upward through the undergrowth; recrossed it, about a hundred yards above, crawled another yard and again recrossed, all to baffle the hound's scent, since from Farrell I could have hidden by this time securely enough. In a very few minutes I heard his voice hallooing to me, and then the dog's yelp began to chime in with it. By and by the beast, well baffled, was baying hard through the undergrowth between me and the surf. "After a while of this play I crept out and strolled easily back to my first ford, my hands in my pockets. "'What the devil's up with your beast?' I asked, wading across to the bank on which Farrell stood. "His face was white. 'My God!' he said. 'I thought, for a while, we had lost you!' "Then I knew that he dared not be alone, and that I had him, whatever happened." NIGHT THE TWENTIETH. ONE MAN ESCAPES. Before continuing Foe's story, I should warn you not to be surprised that hereabouts it takes on a somewhat different tone. I am trying to give you the tale as he told it: and so much of it as related to Santa, he told bravely and frankly, here and there with a thrill somewhere deep beneath his voice, and exaltation on his face. He was, in short, the Jack Foe of old days, opening out his heart to me; and all the more the same because he was different. By this I mean that never in life had I heard him speak in just that way, simply because never in life had he brought me this kind of emotion, to confess it; but, granted the woman and the love, here (I felt) was the old Jack opening his heart to me. It rejuvenated his whole figure, too, and, in a way, ennobled it. I forgot--or rather, I no longer saw--the change in him which had given me that secondary shock when he walked into the room. I cannot tell you the precise point at which his tone altered, and grew hard, defiant, careless and--now and then at its worst--even flippant. But it was here or hereabouts, and you will guess the reason towards the end.