The towline led to a grimy scow
which loomed out of the misty stillness like a heavier drift of the
dawn itself.
"Hello!" Philip hailed the mule driver.
"What's wantin'?" asked the man and halted.
Philip indicated Themar with his foot.
"Here is a gentleman," he explained, "whom I discovered lurking about
my camp a while ago. He showed me his knife and I've mussed him up a
bit."
The mule-driver bent over Themar and sharply scanned the dark, foreign
face.
"One o' them damned black-and-tans, eh?" he growled. "They're too
ready with their knives. What ye goin' to do with him?"
"I'm wondering," shrugged Philip, smoothing his rumpled hair back from
his forehead with the palm of his hand, "if you'll permit me to pay his
passage to a hospital, the farther away, the better."
The mule-driver glanced searchingly at Mr. Poynter's face. Apparently
satisfied, he cupped his mouth with his hands and called "Ho, Jem!"
"Jem" jerked sharply at the tiller and presently the scow scraped the
shore. The mule-driver consigned the care of his mules to Philip and
scrambled down the grassy bank to the edge of the water.
"Where ye want him took?" demanded Jem, scratching a bristling shock of
hair which glimmered through the dawn like a thicket of spikes.
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