We were curious, of course; but it is hardly good taste to ask a man to confide his heartaches. As Tish said, the best cure for a masculine heartache is to make the man comfortable. We did all we could. I dried his coat by the fire, and Tish made hot arnica compresses for his ankle, which was blue and swollen. I believe Aggie would gladly have sat by and held his hand, but he had crawled into his shell of reserve again and would not be coaxed out.
“I have a nephew about your age,” Tish said when he objected to her bathing his ankle. “I’m doing for you what I should do for Charlie Sands under the same circumstances.”
“Charlie Sands!” he said, and I was positive he started. But he said nothing, and we only remembered that later. We were glad to have a man about. Heaven only knows why women persist in regarding men as absolute protection against fire, burglars and lightning. But they do. A sharp storm came up at that time, and ordinarily Aggie would have been in her sleeping-bag, with Modestine’s saddle on top by way of extra protection. But now, from sheer bravado, she went to the mouth of the cave and stood looking out at the lightning.
“Come and look at it, Tish!” she said.
“It’s—— Good gracious! There’s a man across the valley with a gun!”
We all ran to the mouth of the cave except the walking-tour gentleman, who had his foot in a collapsible basin of arnica and hot water. But none of us saw Aggie’s man.
When we went back: “Wouldn’t it be better to darken things up a bit?” he suggested. “If there are bandits round it isn’t necessary to send out a welcome to them, you know.”
This seemed only sensible. We put the fire out and sat in the warm darkness. And that was when our gentleman told us his story.
“Ladies,” he began, “in saying that I am on a walking tour I am telling the truth, but only part of the truth. I am on a walking tour, but not for pleasure. To be frank, I—I am after the outlaws who robbed the express car on the C. & L. Railroad Monday night.”
I heard Aggie gasp in the dark.