“Yes—father—Joe’s got it.”
“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed the Colonel. “It seems to me that you’ve both got it. Do you know that your nose is bleeding, sir?”
Gwyn gave that organ the aboriginal wipe, drawing the back of his hand across his face, looked at it and saw that it was covered with blood.
“No—didn’t know, father,” he said, taking out his handkerchief now. “Yes, it does bleed.”
“Bleed, yes! Why, you have had a regular fight, then?”
“Running fight, seemingly,” said the Major, grimly. “Tut—tut—tut! What a disreputable pair of young blackguards they look.”
“Never mind,” said the Colonel, suavely. “They did quite right to attack the enemy, even if he was in greater force. But I don’t quite understand it, Gwyn. Did he say he was measuring the mine?”
“No, father; but we saw him doing it.”
“But how could he know anything about it? The man was a stranger to me.”
“I never saw him before, father?”