“He was rather quiet. He was a tall man with a little mustache and a gray hat. He told me not to tell you who he was—and I hain’t told you. He told me he seen the place where the mill landed last night. There’s dead cows all along this side the river, and besides was two dead men—that was Bill and Dan. He said he pulled them out and covered up their faces. He said he knew a better crossing down below, and he wished we’d of knowed where it was at. Then he rid back down the river, when he left.”
“A damn good thing he did!” said the trail boss. “Ain’t I had enough without that set of thieves?
“Eat, men,” he added to the half-clad group of stiffened men around the fire. “We have got work to do.”
He made no comment on the news the boy had brought, but led the way. With knives and sharpened sticks, they dug two graves in the sand; stood with hats off for a little time, silent. Some men began to kick dirt in on top of two saddle blankets. They rode away.
In the draggled bivouac at the head of the crossing there remained then only the mistress of Del Sol and the boy Cinquo, who had been ordered to remain. The latter engaged himself in broiling some pieces of meat at the fire, not for himself. His divinity came out at last, having made such toilet as she could.
“Where are the other men?” she asked.
“They’re down a-burying Dan and Bill, ma’am.”
The not infrequent tears came again to Taisie Lockhart’s eyes.
“They come ashore nigh a mile below here, a man told me. He come up from down the river when I was down after the horses. A tall young fellow he was, with a dark mustache. He told me he had found where the mill landed, and the boys and everything.”
“You don’t know who he was?”