He rose to his knees, to his feet, his face ghastly in his own sudden sense of defeat, the worse for his victor's magnanimity, if such it might be called. Humiliation was worse than pain. He staggered, sobbing.
"I won't take nothing for a gift from you!"
But now the men stood between them, like and like. Young Jed Wingate pushed back his man.
"It's done!" said he. "You shan't fight no more with the man that let you up. You're whipped, and by your own word it'd have been worse!"
He himself handed Will Banion his coat.
[pg 74]
"Go get a pail of water," he said to Kelsey, and the latter departed.
Banion stepped apart, battered and pale beneath his own wounds.
"I didn't want to fight him this way," said he. "I left him his eyes so he can see me again. If so he wants, I'll meet him any way. I hope he won't rue back."