Page:Germ Growers.djvu/262

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
ESCAPE.
257

had been well broken in, and his ten or twelve days in the bush had not made him at all forget his training. He seemed to recognise us, and we thought at first that his lameness was quite gone.

Then we reckoned up our store of food. We had saved just nine of the lozenges. We resolved now to take three each, reserving three for the evening.

If Jack was right we should hardly have need of them. And yet we might, for the telegraph stations were far apart, and it might be quite beyond our power to walk to the nearest, and we would not know in which direction to travel in order to reach the nearest. But then, as Jack said, if all came to all we should cut the wire, and that would soon bring us help.

The food quite restored me, but I did not think that it had the same good effect on Jack. He was quite cheerful, brave, and hopeful, but still there was undoubtedly something amiss. So I proposed that Jack should have the horse and that I should walk beside him. "I don't mind," he said, "if I have the first ride." And so it was arranged.

But riding even a very tame horse without either saddle or bridle is neither a pleasant nor a quick way of travelling, and besides the horse's lameness came on again as soon as he had weight to carry, and it became