When he released her he stood with his arms about her for a brief moment, trembling before her.
"I don't deserve it," he said, his voice trembling with emotion. "I guess I'll never deserve that—but I wanted to win first—to win for you."
She leaned a little closer to him and then drew herself up and clung tightly with her arms about his neck.
"King," she said, breathlessly, "I love you—I love you!"
Again he put his lips to hers quickly, passionately—and then put her back from him.
"We must get along down now," he said.
Cherry drew her wrap around her and they went out together.
A few minutes' walking brought them within sight of the town, apparently peaceful in the cold grey glimmer of light just breaking in the east. So quiet was it that King began to wonder if the disturbances of which Cherry had been telling him as they came along had not been settled. Then suddenly there arose a shout from the further side of the town, near the river, and King quickened his pace almost to a run, giving Cherry all she could do to keep up. At last his eagerness mastered him, and leaving Cherry with a last warning to go back to Hurley's cottage and not to stir until he should come for her, he left her and went off at a run in the direction of the shouting.
What King saw when he reached the point in the street where it turned and ran along the bank of the river made him stand a moment aghast. Back against the trees the buildings stood, huddling together closely in the cold light of the early morning. The water in the river was almost level with the ground on which he was standing, and large sections of the bank had been swept away during the night, until the corral in which the horses were placed before King left town the night before, was now standing on the very brink of the flood.
This was in itself enough to strike fear into King's heart, but the movements of the men were what concerned him most. Half-drunken still from their night's debauch they seemed to be rolling about in a kind of ridiculous orgy, stumbling and falling and scrambling to their feet again, shouting and cursing and grappling each other in frenzied disorder.