The Shark nodded absently. He was giving a moment to studying the opposite bank.
“Of course—too cold.... Be too cold for two months yet,” he added.
Varley pushed the collar of his coat higher. If he were not mistaken, the rain was increasing. Funny how sight of that yellow, rushing river made everything seem more dismal than ever, he reflected.
Somewhere in the dim distance the Shark made out what he had been looking for.
“Um-m! That’ll be it—highest ground anywhere around. Now, if I can get a line——” He broke off the sentence, and, turning, stared in the direction in which, by Varley’s hazy reckoning, lay the Grant farmhouse.
“What are you up to?” Paul inquired.
“What do you s’pose?” countered the Shark testily. “Think I’m looking for birds’ nests?”
“Oh, no,” Varley answered humbly; just then he was not disposed to controversy. His tone was not lost upon the Shark, who said, quickly and almost apologetically:
“Oh, I say! ’Tisn’t as if you knew more—er—er—as if you were better posted, I mean. Ought to have thought of that! But I’m getting my bearings. And I am getting them, too.”
“Your bearings?” Paul repeated, doubtfully. “Then you’ve been here before.”