Evelyn scrambled wildly along the ridge, and when she reached the foot of it Vane was helping Mabel up the sloping bank of gravel. The girl's drenched garments clung about her, her wet hair was streaked across her face; but she seemed able to stand, and she was speaking in jerky gasps. The hunt had swept on through shoaler water, but there was a cheer from the stragglers across the river. Evelyn clutched her sister, half laughing, half sobbing, and incoherently upbraided her. Mabel shook herself free, and her first remark was characteristic. "Oh!" she said, "don't make a silly fuss." Then she tried to shake out her dripping skirt. "I'm only wet through, Wallace, take me home." Vane picked her up, which was what she seemed to expect, and the others followed when he pushed through the underbush towards a neighbouring meadow. Evelyn, however, was still a little unnerved, and when they reached a gap in a wall she stopped, and leaning against the stones turned to Carroll. "I think I'm more disturbed than Mopsy is," she said. "What I felt must be some excuse for me. I'm sorry for what I said; it was unjustifiable." "Anyway, it was perfectly natural; but I must confess that I felt some temptation to make a fool of myself. I might have jumped into those alders, but it's most unlikely that I could have got out of them." Evelyn looked at him with a faint respect. She had not troubled to point out that he had not flinched from the leap, when it seemed likely to be of service. "How had you the sense to think of that?" she asked. "I suppose it's a matter of practice," Carroll answered with amusement. "One can't work among the ranges and rivers without learning to make the right decision rapidly. When you don't, you get badly hurt. The thing has to be cultivated, it's not instinctive." Evelyn was struck by the explanation. This acquired coolness was a finer thing, and undoubtedly more useful than hot-headed gallantry, though she admired the latter. "Wallace was splendid in the water," she broke out, uttering part of her thoughts aloud. "I thought rather more of him in the city," Carroll replied. "That kind of thing was new to him, and I'm inclined to believe I'd have let the folks he had to negotiate with have the mine for a good deal less than what he eventually got for it. But I've said something about that before, and after all I'm not here to play Boswell." The girl was surprised at the apt allusion; it was not what she would have expected from the man. Since she had not recovered her composure, she forgot what Vane had told her about him, and her comment was an incautious one. "How did you hear of him?" Carroll parried this with a smile. "Oh!" he said, "you don't suppose you can keep those old fellows to yourselves--they're international. But hadn't we better be getting on? Let me help you through the gap."