"Too late?"
"Had a job in your line...." Then suddenly: "Maudie's worth the whole lot of you."
They knew it was his way of saying "She's told me." They all sat and looked at the floor. Nothing happened for a long time. At last: "Well, you all know what my next move is; what's yours?"
There was another silence, but not nearly so long.
"What prospects, pardners?" he repeated.
The Boy looked at Maudie. She made a little gesture of "I've done all the fightin' I'm good for." The Colonel's eyes, clear again and tranquil, travelled from face to face.
O'Flynn cleared his throat, but it was Mac who spoke.
"Yes—a—we would like to hold a last—hold a counsel o' war. We've always kind o' followed your notions—at least"—veracity pared down the compliment—"at least, you can't say but what we've always listened to you."
"Yes, you might just—a—start us as well as you can," says Potts.
The Colonel smiled a little. Each man still "starting"—forever starting for somewhere or something, until he should come to this place where the Colonel was. Even he, why, he was "starting" too. For him this was no end other than a chapter's ending. But these men he had lived and suffered with, they all wanted to talk the next move over—not his, theirs—all except the Boy, it seemed.