"Not a word."
"The outfit's complete?"
"Sure. To the last boy. You can break camp the day after this stuff's hauled and we've packed it."
"Good." Kars sighed as if in relief. "Well, I'll get on. Hustle all you know. And, say, get a tally of McTavish's outfit. Get their time schedule. I'll need it. So long."
Kars followed his personal baggage which a quayside porter had taken on to the grandiosely named mail train.
John Kars was standing at the curtained window of Dr. Bill's apartment in the Hoffman Apartment House. His back was turned on the luxuriously furnished room. For some time the silence had been broken only by the level tones of the owner of the apartment who was lounging in the depths of a big rocker adjacent to a table laden with surgical instruments. He had been telling the detailed story of the preparations made at the camp some ten miles distant from the city, and the supervision of whose affairs Kars had left in his hands. As he ceased speaking Kars turned from his contemplation of the tawdry white and gold of the Elysian Fields which stood out in full view from the window of the apartment.
"Now tell me of that boy—Alec," he demanded.
The directness of the challenge had its effect. Bill Brudenell stirred uneasily in his chair. His shrewd eyes widened with a shade of trouble. Nor did he answer readily.
"Things are wrong?" Kars' steady eyes searched his friend's face.
"Well—they're not—good."