Page:A Wild-Goose Chase - Balmer - 1915.djvu/126

112 Geoff had an impulse to go with him, then turned back. Latham went out. Koehler continued his search, but it was Brunton who, in the semidarkness, found the second tin, seemingly empty but sealed. He cut a hole in the tin with his knife and pulled out a paper. As he brought it into better light under the tiny window Koehler and Geoff crowded beside him. Brunton spread the paper and displayed writing.

"Eric Hedon's!" Geoff cried as he saw it, and the surge of hot blood to his face let him know fully for the first time how hard he had hoped it. He looked to Koehler and to Brunton. They had been comrades to both the men who had come here after them; one had been their leader. This writing, being Hedon's, told them that their commander was the one lying under the cross on the hill. Certainly as much for Thomas' sake as for Hedon's had these men been glad to return to the North.

"Ian, old comrade! Ian!" Koehler repeated hoarsely to himself, as the realisation of Thomas' death there came to him. Brunton bent his head a moment. Yet the next instant,