troubles would be ended or only just begun, because the Scots have a way of teaching hell, and fire, and brimstone, and having been to the world’s latest war, Jamie MacFarlane knew more about hell than any Scottish minister who ever had described it from a pulpit, and having carried an open wound in his breast for nearly two years, there was no one who could tell him much about fire, and the brimstone at the springs had not worked.
So he went on through the evening shadows until he could go no longer; then he sat down on a nice, big, warm boulder beside the road, crossed his feet, and waited to see what would happen. The very thing that he might have known would happen had he been living among a world of well men, did happen. Another car came along, and the owner, noting his pallor and his uniform and having a vacant seat, stopped, and again he was asked if he would care to ride.
“Slick!” said Jamie to himself. “Maybe this isn’t going to be so bad after all.”
He looked at the car, which was loaded to the running boards with camping paraphernalia. He could see rolls of bedding; he could scent food. The man had a friendly face, the girl on the seat beside him was young and pretty. The woman with whom he was invited to occupy the back seat was of motherly appearance. Her round face was strong and attractive, and, under the spell of it, Jamie was guilty of evasion. He said he had just left a hospital where he had been for a year. He gave the impression that the doctors had discharged him. He did not say that
