"That's true," admitted Andrew with a direct glance. "I am, however, not making trouble. It's all round me and must be grappled with."
"Then I wish you luck," said Leonard, and went out.
Andrew lighted a cigar; he deeply distrusted Leonard, whose confederate, perhaps with his knowledge, had plotted to starve him to death; it was irksome that he should be forced to treat the man as an honored guest. Of late he had been subject to fits of savage anger as he remembered how his attempt to find the lode was thwarted. So far as it was possible, he must play out the game correctly in accordance with conventional rules. His relatives would insist on this; an outbreak would shock them and cost him their support. Nevertheless, it was hard to dissemble and treat Leonard courteously.
Flinging his cigar into the grate, Andrew rose with a frown. His brother-in-law was right: there was trouble ahead. He had not only Leonard but the unscrupulous Mappin to grapple with.
CHAPTER XXV
A DELICATE POINT
The afternoon was drawing to a close when Andrew, Olcott, and a friend of the latter's, carrying guns and spread out in line, entered a stretch of rough, boggy pasture near the river. Clumps of reeds and rushes grew along the open drains, water gleamed among the grass, and the bare trees on the high bank across the stream stood out sharp and black against a glow of saffron light. The men were wet to the knees, and a white setter, splashed with mire, trotted in front of them. Murray, Olcott's friend, who was on Andrew's right, sprang across a broad drain and laughed when he alighted.
"Over my boots, but my feet can't get any wetter," he remarked. "I don't know that this is a judicious amusement after being invalided home from the tropics; but it looks a likely place for a mallard."
Allinson had met Murray for the first time that morning, and noticed that the man, a government official in a West African colony, looked at him rather intently when they were introduced. They had, however, spent a pleasant day, and Andrew was going to Olcott's to dinner.
"I'm afraid the plover will put up any ducks there are about," he said. "They're a nuisance and you're not allowed to shoot them here. It will be bad to keep our line over this rough ground."