He dropped his roll and began working his way through the bushes. Presently he came to a spot from which he could see a figure propped up against a tree. There was a rifle across the man's knees, gripped in both hands. And yet surely the rifle had been whirled out of his hands in his fall. Then he was not hurt badly, after all, since he had managed to work his way back up to it. "Oh! It's you, is it, King?" The man against the tree did not seem overjoyed; there was a sullen note in his voice. King came on, breaking his way through the brush. "Hello," he said, a little taken aback. "It's you, is it? I thought it would be----" But he did not say who. He came on and stood over the man on the ground, stooping for an instant to peer close into his face. "Hurt much?" he asked. 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.