'Then will you put this flask of brandy into your pocket, miss? I don't like to give it to the missus. It's kinder suggestive like.'
She took the little bottle, and while he helped her on with her waterproof cloak he spoke again in his kindly Northumbrian familiarity:
'It's a good thing we've got Mr. Trist with us this night, that it is! He's what Captain Barrow would call a strong tower.'
Brenda smiled rather wanly as she hurried away.
'Yes,' she answered; 'I am very glad we have him to rely upon.'
Mrs. Wylie seemed scarcely to notice that Brenda stepped into the boat and sat down beside her. The little lady was making a brave fight against her growing anxiety. She even laughed when the sail filled with a loud flap, and nearly precipitated Cobbold into the water. Crouching low, the two women sat in silence. It was now blowing stiffly, and perhaps Cobbold would have done better to take a reef in the light sail; but in his anxiety to reach the river without delay he risked the lives of his two passengers more freely than he would have dared to do in a cooler moment. As is usually the case, his confidence was greater under excitement, and no mishap befell the little boat.
CHAPTER VII.
A SPORTSMAN'S DEATH.
When they reached the mouth of the river they found the long-boat lying alongside the huge shelving rock used as a landing-stage on account of its convenience during all varieties of tide.
The man watching there had heard or seen nothing of Mr. Trist or Admiral Wylie. The ladies sat for some time in the stern of the gig, wrapped in their waterproof cloaks, without speaking. Then Brenda begged to be landed. She was shivering with cold and anxiety. She walked slowly up the smooth surface of the rock and disappeared. Once out of sight of the two boats which lay heaving softly on the bosom of the rising tide, she quickened her pace, keeping to the narrow path trodden on the peaty soil by Admiral Wylie and Theo Trist in turn. It was probable that the human beings who had passed along that scarcely visible track, from the days of the Flood down to the time that this little English maiden pressed her way through the silver-birch trees, could be counted upon the fingers of two hands. There was nothing to attract the curious up the deep gorge formed by this unknown stream. Far inland, over impassable rocks, lay the corner of a huge glacier from whence the river received its chill waters. There was no natural beauty to draw thither the artist, no animal life to attract the naturalist, no vast height to tempt the mountaineer. Here century after century the trout had lain, head up stream, to catch what God might send them. In the lower waters, year after year, the sturdy salmon had pressed past each other through rill and whirlpool, with gills flattened to the fresh cool waters of the snow-field.