“What are you doing with that?” George demanded from the doorway, much as Storm had spoken the moment before.
The latter laughed jerkily.
“It’s not loaded! I was looking to see if it was all right, for we’ll take it with us, of course.” He threw it carelessly to the couch and reached in the drawer once more. “Here is a box of cartridges. Put them in, too, old man.”
“I don’t see what you want it for!” George grumbled anxiously. “If two men can’t protect themselves against anything they met in those woods without a gun——”
“Silver Run isn’t the Beaver Kill, you know!” Storm retorted in a significant tone as he reached into his hip pocket and produced a silver mounted flask. “I’m confoundedly tired; think I’ll take a bracer.—Have one?”
George shook his head and Storm drank deeply, then replaced the flask in his pocket with a sigh.
“About that pistol, though. I really prefer to take it along.”
“All right.” George acquiesced somewhat dubiously. “I never did any hunting, and I am not crazy about having firearms lying around; but if you’ll be careful of it and see that it doesn’t go off——”
“We won’t even load it until we get to the lodge.” Storm yawned and sweeping a pile of old corduroys off the nearest chair, sank into it. “Give me those lines and reels and I’ll sort them out.”
George complied, and for a time they worked in silence while the candles burned low and a fat, furry moth or two thumped against the window pane. Storm took another long drink, but his languor increased, his hands moved more slowly among the tangled lines and at length dropped inertly to his knees. George glanced up to find the other’s head fallen forward upon his breast and his eyes closed.