"But someone had to come, and I found a place where the fire had not caught on much, and I made a dash for it and dodged it, racing from tree to tree. No, I've not a burn on me. The soles of my boots are scorched and my clothes half off my back, because I could not stop to pick my way, and the fire had only penetrated quite a narrow way into the bush. The puzzle was when I came to the far side of it to find the track. I should have been here quicker else."
"But you found it all right at last."
"Yes, I found it safe enough. That's why I wanted to get off whilst it was daylight. Even with a moon I should have lost my way."
"But what of those left behind?"
Jack made a little grimace. "I never thought of them, only of you, but it's different, isn't it? Eva's all right. She'll sleep as sound as a top till the morning, and for the rest, I don't belong to them as I do to Aunt Betty."
"No, no," said Clarissa Kenyon, seizing one of Jack's hands, and laying her soft cheek against it. "They will only wonder vaguely what has become of you, but my heart was breaking, Jack, breaking with the fear that I had lost my little Eva. God bless you for bringing me the news of her safety."
Jack drew away his hand uneasily as her tears fell on it, and tried to rub it clean.
"Come along, Jack, come down to the river and have a wash and a comb up before we start for home," said Aunt Betty, in her matter-of-fact way, but Jack never guessed that her heart was thumping against her ribs with joy and pride in the boy who was ready to go through fire or water if he thought that duty demanded it of him, and her pride found its lawful expression later when she found herself alone with Tom for a minute.
"Yes," he answered with quiet satisfaction. "He promises to turn into a boy that his father will be proud of one day."