“She doesn’t need one; she is dead.”
Hobart grasped the situation with far-seeing prescience.
“Then you have nothing to stay here for; let us get out while we can.” The din of the street battle rang clamorous at the front, and he took Brant’s arm to lead him to the door, which opened upon the alley in the rear. “Come on,” he urged; “they will be back here presently, and you have nothing to fight for now.”
“No.” Brant yielded as one in a trance, but at the door he broke away, to dart back with the gray eyes aflame and fierce wrath crying for vengeance. Unnoted of all, the wounded desperado had lain where Brant’s fusillade had dropped him. But now he was on hands and knees, trying to drag himself out of the room. Brant was quick, but the assayer pinioned him before the ready weapon could flash from its holster.
“Good God, man, that would be murder!” he panted, wrestling with the avenger of blood, and possessing himself of the pistol. “Come on out of this!”
Again Brant yielded, and they made their way to the open air, and through the alleyway to the mountain path, and so in silence up to the Jessica and to the assayer’s cabin. Not until they were safe within the four log walls did Hobart open his mouth. But when he had struck a light and hung a blanket over the window which looked valleyward he spoke tersely and to the point:
“A few hours ago, George, you told me why you couldn’t turn your back on your shame, and I had nothing to say. But now the reason is removed, and you have had an object lesson which ought to last you as long as you live. What do you say?”
Brant spread his hands as one helpless. “What else am I good for?” he asked.
“That question is unworthy of you, and you know it. You have your profession; but without that you could still do as well as another.”
Brant was still afoot, and he fought his battle to a finish, pacing slowly back and forth with his hands behind him and his head bowed. For all his square jaw and steadfast eyes, rash impulse had been the bane of his life thus far, and the knowledge of it made him slow to decide even when the decision leaned toward the things which make for righteousness. So he fought the battle to its conclusion, and when it was ended was fain to sit down awearied with the stress of it.