Roberts got up suddenly. He had the look of a tortured animal in his eyes. “Boys,” he said, “my wife is dead. My life doesn’t matter so much, but—I’ve three little girls! I must get back, somehow!”
The sick man spoke. They all started guiltily, and looked toward him. “Yes, yes, Polly,” he said, soothingly, “I know how you worried about me. I know how you set strainin’ your eyes out the window day an’ night, watchin’ fer me. But now I’m home again, an’ it’s all right. I guess you prayed, Polly; an’ I guess God heard you.... There’s a boy fer you! He knows me, too.”
The silence that fell upon them was long and terrible. The guide arose at last, and, without speaking, made some broth from the last of the canned beef, and forced it between the sick man’s lips. When he came back to the fire, Darnell took a silver dollar out of his pocket.
“Boys,” he said, brokenly, “I don’t want to be the one to settle this, and I guess none of you do. It is an awful thing to decide. I shall throw this dollar high into the air. If it falls heads up, we go; tails—we stay.”
The men had lifted their heads and were watching him. They were all very white; they were all trembling.
“Are you willing to decide it in this way?”
Each answered, “Yes.”
“I swear,” said Darnell, slowly and solemnly, “that I will abide by this decision. Do you all swear the same?”
Each, in turn, took the oath. Trembling now perceptibly, Darnell lifted his hand slowly and cast the piece of silver into the air. Their eyes followed its shining course. For a second it disappeared; then it came singing to the earth.
Like drunken men they staggered to the spot where it had fallen, and fell upon their knees, staring with straining eyes and bloodless lips.