"He funked for some reason, _I_ thought," Simpson said afterwards in the
tent he shared with his uncle. Dr. Cathcart made no immediate reply,
although the look had interested him enough at the time for him to make
a mental note of it. The expression had caused him a passing uneasiness
he could not quite account for at the moment.

But Hank, of course, had been the first to notice it, and the odd thing
was that instead of becoming explosive or angry over the other's
reluctance, he at once began to humor him a bit.

"But there ain't no _speshul_ reason why no one's been up there this
year," he said with a perceptible hush in his tone; "not the reason you
mean, anyway! Las' year it was the fires that kep' folks out, and this
year I guess--I guess it jest happened so, that's all!" His manner was
clearly meant to be encouraging.

Joseph Défago raised his eyes a moment, then dropped them again. A
breath of wind stole out of the forest and stirred the embers into a
passing blaze. Dr. Cathcart again noticed the expression in the guide's
face, and again he did not like it. But this time the nature of the look
betrayed itself. In those eyes, for an instant, he caught the gleam of a
man scared in his very soul. It disquieted him more than he cared to
admit.

"Bad Indians up that way?" he asked, with a laugh to ease matters a
little, while Simpson, too sleepy to notice this subtle by-play, moved
off to bed with a prodigious yawn; "or--or anything wrong with the
country?" he added, when his nephew was out of hearing.

Hank met his eye with something less than his usual frankness.