The woodsman seemed troubled with a rasping in his throat. He cleared it twice and spat before he could open a passage for a decently cheerful voice in which to suggest a rise of spirits. But Herb was too faithful a guide to bear the thought that his employers’ trip should end in any gloom because the one painful chapter in his own life had closed forever. Moreover, although more than once, as he fought his way through a jungle or jumped a windfall, something nipped his heart, pinching him up inside, and making his eyes leak, he felt that the thing had ended well for him—and for Chris.