"You might look after Bella; she's alone in the next butt--and I've something else to do," he said. "There's an awkward ghyll to cross and she won't carry anything lighter than a 14-gun. See she doesn't leave the cartridges in it." He strode away across the heather, and Lisle turned toward the turf shelter indicated. As he approached it, a girl appeared and glanced at him with very obvious curiosity; but as he supposed that she was the sister of his late companion he did not expect any diffidence from her. She was short in stature and slight in figure, and dressed in grayish brown; hat, coat, and remarkably short skirt all of the same material. Her hair was of a copper color; her eyes, which were rather narrow, of a pale grayish-green. He would have called them hard, and there was a hint of arrogance in her expression. Yet she was piquantly pretty. "I suppose you're Nasmyth's Canadian friend?" she began, and went on without waiting for an answer: "As we occupy adjoining butts on the next drive, you may take my gun. Teddy has deserted me." "Teddy?" queried Lisle, who wondered if she were referring to her brother. "I thought his name was Jim." "It's Marple's stout friend with the dyed hair I mean. I told him what would happen if he ate as he persisted in doing at lunch. It's too hot to gormandize; I wasn't astonished when he collapsed at the steep place on the last walk. Reflecting that it was his own fault, I left him." Lisle was not charmed with the girl's manners, but he could not check a smile. "Are you tired? You oughtn't to be," she continued with another bold glance at him. "No," he replied; "if it's any consolation to you, I'm far from exhausted yet." "That's reassuring," she retorted. "You haven't taken my gun." Having forgotten it for the moment, he flushed a little, and she watched him with unconcealed amusement while he opened the weapon and took out the cartridges. "What's that for?" she asked impertinently. "It's hammerless; there's nothing to catch." "The pull-off's probably very light, if it's been made for a lady's use. It's sometimes possible to jar the strikers down when they set the springs to yield at a touch." "Then you know something about guns?" she said, as if she had not expected this. "Not a great deal about the scatter kind, though I've stripped a few." "We never do that," she informed him. "We send them to London. Still, you're right; the gun did go off when I knocked it jumping down from a wall." "If you'll let me have it to-night, I'll alter that. I understand we're going out again to-morrow." She considered a moment. "Well," she consented, with the air of one conferring a favor, "you may take it when we've finished." Lisle wondered what had prompted him to make the offer. The way she had addressed him was not ingratiating, but he delighted in examining any fine mechanism and he had never handled such a beautifully made weapon.