She was sufficiently light-hearted to laugh with him when he glanced down at his torn and travel-worn clothes.
"And then we shall be arrested for tramps," she finished for him. "There is one consolation--neither of us will look any worse than the other."
"When we find a town we shall find clothes," he asserted. "Luckily we have English money to buy with."
"Would you--would you spend that money?" she asked, half fearfully.
"Why not? I'd hock the dead men themselves if we had them and there wasn't any other way to raise the wind. But I have some good, old-fashioned American money, too."
"I shall have to borrow of you when we get to where we can buy things," she said, with a sudden access of shyness that was new to him. "I had a purse with a little money in it that night at Quebec, but it disappeared."
"What is mine is yours, Lucetta; surely you don't have to be told that, at this stage of the game."
"Thank you," she said softly. "That goes with everything else you have done for me." Then, after a pause: "Will you tell the other girl about this--about this adventure of ours, Donald?"
"Don't you think I ought to tell her? Isn't it her right to know?"
"I'm not sure; women are singular about some things; they don't always understand. Perhaps they don't care to understand--too much. Then there is always the difficulty of explaining things just as they were. I could tell better if I knew the girl. Is she young?"
"Why, y-yes--some years younger than I am. But she is all kinds of sensible."
"No," he answered soberly. "She is not in New York."
She took it as a hint that she was not to ask any more questions about the girl and changed the subject abruptly.
"Shall you go and look for Mr. Grider after we find a railroad?"
"Not immediately. I shall first see you safe at home in your girls'-school town in Ohio," he assured her firmly.
"Oh, that won't be necessary," she protested. "I have travelled alone many times. And I have my return ticket; or I shall have it when I get back to Quebec."
"Nevertheless, I am going home with you," Prime insisted stubbornly. "It is up to me to see you out of this, and I shall make a job of it while I am about it. When it is done I shall come back to Canada to find out who shanghaied us and what for. And when I find the people who did it they are going to pay for it."
