“Don’t,” she said, gentle and just even now. “I was afraid you both were gone. Please don’t talk. I’m afraid—oh, I’m afraid!—and I’m so cold—I’m so very cold.”
She was shivering now, Joslin as well. He hurried to his flung coat and found matches this time, came with bits of drift wood, pieces of dry brandies. He built a little fire. “You must get warm,” said he.
“What shall we do? Oh, what shall we do? This awful place—oh, this awful place!”
“Wait just a little,” said David Joslin. “You must get warm.”
They cowered at the fire, two small human objects here in the grip of the wilderness, in the hands of fate indeed. It was some time before Joslin raised his head.
“There’s someone coming—I hear a wagon on the rocks, Ma’am,” said he, starting up. “You stay here—I’ll go see—it must be someone on the trail above.”
He hurried to the edge of the undergrowth and disappeared. The sound of wheels became apparent to her ears. Soon after they stopped she saw Joslin come again, accompanied by a tall gaunt man his equal in stature, a man who came and stood near by her, looking down in pity.
“Ma’am,” said he, “this is mighty bad—mighty bad.”
“Help me, Absalom,” said David Joslin. “Mrs. Haddon, you go over there. We’re going to take him to the wagon.”
Marcia Haddon turned away, her face buried in her hands. She did not see David Joslin and Absalom Gannt as they bent and lifted between them the dead body of the man who but now might have boasted that he held these and the land of these in the hollow of his hand. They held him now, neck and heels, in the hollows of their hands, such being the will of fate. They carried him up the hillside, and they laid him on the top of the rough load of lumber which was to make his resting place for a time. Then they came back after the woman.