"If you weren't so cheerful," said Phyllis, "I should have begun to cry an hour ago. Do you really think this is fun?"

"Do I think it's fun? To be in a scrape—not to know when or how we are going to get out of it? You bet I think it's fun."

"People have died," said Phyllis, "having just this sort of fun. Suppose we can't get out?"

"You mean to-day? Perhaps we can't. Perhaps not to-morrow. Perhaps we shall have to learn how to live in a swamp. A month of the life we've led for the last few hours might turn us into amphibians. That would be intensely novel and interesting. But, of course, when winter comes and the place freezes over we can march right out and take up our orthodox lives where we left off. Listen!"

"What?"

"I think I hear webs growing between my fingers and toes."

Phyllis laughed so that the partially dried mud on her face cracked.

"What," she said, "are we going to eat this side of winter? What are we going to eat now?"

His face expressed immense concern.

"What? You are hungry? Allow me!"

He produced from his inside pocket a very large cake of sweet chocolate, wrapped in several thicknesses of oiled silk.

"My one contribution," he said, "to the science of woodcraft."

Phyllis ate and was refreshed. Afterward she washed all the mud from her face. Herring watched the progress of the ablution with much interest.

"Wonderful!" he said presently.

"What is wonderful?" she asked, not without anticipation of a compliment.

"Wonderful to find that something which is generally accepted as true—is true. To see it proved before your eyes."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," he said, "that I never before actually saw a girl wash her face. I've seen 'em when they said they were going to. I've seen 'em when they said they just had. But now I know."

"If you weren't quite mad," said Phyllis, "you'd be very exasperating. Here am I, frightened half to death, cold and miserable, and dreadfully worried to think how worried my family must be, and there are you, almost too tired to stand, actually delighted with yourself, because you're in trouble and because for the first time in your life you've seen a girl wash her face. Can't you be serious about anything?"

"Not about a half-drowned girl taking the trouble to wash her face," he said.

"You," said she, "would look much better if you washed yours."

"But," he said, "we'll be covered with mud again before we've gone fifty yards."

"Because you are going into a coal mine to-morrow," said Phyllis, "is no reason why you shouldn't be clean to-day."

"True," said Herring, and he washed his face.

*

At breakfast that morning Pritchard received the following cablegram:

Come home and shake hands. I'm off. M.

Greatly moved, he carried it to Gay, and without comment put it in her hand.

"Who is M?" she asked.