Bill and Mike were ready too. The wind had died down to a cruel whine and their project waited.
"Well, so long, Parson," said Bill with a pretty decent show of cheer in his voice. "If we can't git through we'll have to come back. That's all."
"Now no gittin' low spirited while we're gone," called out McShay as he went to the door. "Now mind! No gittin' discouraged; no givin' up; no white-flag business! Don't you let him weaken, Wah-na-gi."
"No, no," she answered back through her tears, trying hard to catch the uplift of the big cowman.
"God sure hates a quitter, Parson; ain't that right?"
"That's right," whispered back McCloud, meeting the demand for a rally and a charge. "That's right. Mike. No one shall say I was a quitter. I'm going out with the honors of war, the flag flying and the band playing."
"Good," shouted back the Irishman from the storm-door, and they were gone.
After the paroxysm that followed their departure had passed, the sick man sank back upon the couch exhausted, and closed his eyes to rest. It had been a great strain, but somehow he felt more at peace than he had done for a long time, and he drifted into a great calm.
To Wah-na-gi, who had to watch the struggle, and whose great pity and love demanded something to do, her conscious helplessness was an ordeal. Finally she could restrain herself no longer and she cried out in the agony of her soul: "Oh, my father, why is it? Why is it? If there is a God, why does he let you suffer?"
"Every heart has faced that mystery, dear child," he said gently. "Even the Saviour had a moment when he felt forsaken. I thought once I was to do big things for humanity and God, but who knows what is great or what is little? Some careless word I may have spoken and forgotten may be blessed, or my obedience, my patience, may have touched some heart here, yours or another's, who will redeem the waste places and make the wilderness to blossom as the rose."