held out his slim palm for their grasp.

Again they stared; but the hand won them. They touched it fumblingly
and were impressed. They were a slow lot, selected for various
purposes other than wit. Their minds moved too sluggishly for swift
reactions, and I dismissed anxiety about them from my mind.

The Englishman turned to me. "Will you conduct me to the shore? I
will take Pierre's place."

It was my turn to stare. "Suppose you conduct yourself," was on my
tongue, but I let it escape unsaid. "Come, then," I answered, with a
shrug.

I led the way over logs and under bushes, and the Englishman followed
silently; silently at least as to his tongue, but his feet were
garrulous. They stepped on twigs, stumbled on slippery lichen, and
shouted their passage for rods around.

"I would rather lead a buffalo in tether," I fretted, and just as I
said it he completed the sum of his blundering by catching his toe in a
root and plunging head foremost to the ground. I pulled him up by the
sleeve of his skin blouse and shook him free from loam and twigs.

"Now will you stop that?" I cried.

He looked at me gravely, unabashed, but curious. "I did not fall
purposely to irritate you. Gravity, which, I understand, operates
alike on the learned and the foolish, had some share in it. Why are
you angry?"