Page:Harris Dickson--The black wolf's breed.djvu/218

194 sounded along the outer passage followed by an almost imperative knock on the door. Jerome, I thought. So it was. Jerome, bespattered and soiled from his hard ride, a raw bruise across his cheek, his clothing awry. He was pale and determined, yet quiet withal.

I instinctively rose and laid my hand to my hilt. A glance reassured me. His purpose, lying deeper, I could not divine; it was plain though he brooded not that kind of quarrel. Nor do I to this day know what he intended when he first entered Serigny's room that night.

"I rode after you in all haste, Captain."

"Indeed you did," I mentally agreed.

"And met a fall, which, as you see, has somewhat disfigured me," and he laughed, while I agreed with him again.

Serigny, being so intent on the important transactions of the hour, accepted his explanation without question. The welcome, though cordial, was brief, Serigny being a man of no unnecessary words.

"Go on, Captain," and I picked up the broken thread of my narrative where Jerome had interrupted.

As I went on obediently, Jerome would now and again supply some link wherein my memory failed, or suggest something I had left unsaid, until having so much the nimbler tongue he took the telling out of my mouth entirely. I could not complain, for he detailed the various adventures far better than I, and gave me more of the credit than I would have claimed for myself. We had, by common consent, forgotten our late strife,