Page:War Drums (1928).pdf/276

 Lachlan, and they saw that tears were in his eyes, and yet he was smiling and there was a great content in his face. It was not his habit to talk in riddles, but this time his words left them puzzled.

"I am glad," he said slowly in his bird-like voice. "I have been afraid that she would not discover herself in time. That danger is past now."

When Lachlan stared at him blankly and Almayne swore under his breath, O'Sullivan laughed happily.

"You think I am daft," he told them. "You will see that I am wiser than you two simpletons put together."

For Lachlan there could be no sleep that night. Presently, while O'Sullivan and Almayne still stood talking, he wandered alone down the steep, narrow trail which led to the spring and the little meadow where the horses grazed. His thoughts were still awhirl. He did not realize that as he passed the spot where O'Sullivan had been sitting on watch, he picked up the Irishman's rapier which had been leaning against a rock. Yet, as always when he walked through the woods, he moved with the noiselessness of an Indian hunter, and as always his senses were alert.

Suddenly a faint sound halted him. It might have been one of the horses in the meadow below, but he did not believe that this sound had been made by a horse. More cautiously than ever he moved forward