“Where have we not met?” came the reply, after a pause. “That would be an easier question to answer.”
“Well, at any rate, it is awfully good of you to have taken care of me like this,” said John Ames, thinking it advisable to waive the question of identity for the present. “Did I fall far?”
“So far that, but for a timely tree breaking your fall, you would hardly have an unbroken bone within you now.”
“But how did I get here? Did you get me here alone?”
“A moment ago you were deciding that curiosity might sometimes be out of place. You are quick at changing your mind, John Ames.”
The latter felt guilty. This was indeed “thought-reading” with a vengeance.
“Yes; but pardon me if it seems to you inquisitive—it is not meant that way,” he said. “The fact is, I am not alone. I have a friend who will be terribly anxious—in fact, terribly frightened at my absence. I suppose you are in hiding, like ourselves?” Again that mirthless laugh.
“In hiding? Yes; in hiding. But not like yourselves.”
“But will you not join us? I know my way about this sort of country fairly well, and it is only a question of a little extra care, and we are bound to come through all right.”
“Such ‘little extra care’ as you displayed only yesterday, John Ames? Yet an evening or so back you thought my presence hardly likely to prove an acquisition.”