"I blundered into their hands like a blind kitten," said he, reproachfully.
"They'll eat lead for it!" said Taterleg.
"It was Kerr and that gang," Lambert explained, not wanting to leave any doubt behind if he should have to go.
"You can tell us after a while," she said, with compassionate tenderness.
"Sure," said Taterleg, cheerfully, "you lay back there and take it easy. I'll keep my eye on things."
That evening, when the pain had eased out of his head, Lambert told Vesta what he had gone through, sparing nothing of the curiosity that had led him, like a calf, into their hands. He passed briefly over their attempt to herd him into the fire, except to give Whetstone the hero's part, as he so well deserved.
Vesta sat beside him, hearing him to the end of the brief recital that he made of it in silence, her face white, her figure erect. When he finished she laid her hand on his forehead, as if in tribute to the manhood that had borne him through such inhuman torture, and the loyalty that had been the cause of its visitation. Then she went to the window, where she stood a long time looking over the sad sweep of broken country, the fringe of twilight on it in somber shadow.
It was not so dark when she returned to her place at his bedside, but he could see that she had been weeping in the silent pain that rises like a poison distillation from the heart.
"It draws the best into it and breaks them," she said in great bitterness, speaking as to herself. "It isn't worth the price!"
"Never mind it, Vesta," he soothed, putting out his hand. She took it between her own, and held it, and a great comfort came to him in her touch.