Ed Brann came in a moment later with his brother, and there was a significant little pause—a pause which grew painful till Albert turned and saw Brann, and called out:
"Hello, Ed! How are you? Didn't know you were here."
As he held out his hand, Brann, his face purple with shame and embarrassment, lumbered heavily across the room and took it, muttering some poor apology.
"Hope y' don't blame me."
"Of course not—fortunes o' war. Nobody to blame; just my carelessness.—Yes; I'll take turkey," he said to Maud, as he sank into the seat of honor.
The rest laughed, but Brann remained standing near Albert's chair. He had not finished yet.
"I'm mighty glad you don't lay it up against me, Lohr; an' I want to say the doctor's bill is all right; you un'erstand, it's all right."
Albert looked at him a moment in surprise. He understood that this, coming from a man like Brann, meant more than a thousand prayers from a ready apologist. It was a terrible victory, and he was disposed to make it as easy for his rival as he could.
"Oh, all right, Ed; only I'd calculated to cheat him out o' part of it—I'd planned to turn in a couple o' Blaine's Twenty Years on the bill."
Hartley roared, and the rest joined in, but not even Albert perceived all that it meant. It meant that the young savage had surrendered his claim in favor of the man he had all but killed. The struggle had been prodigious, but he had snatched victory out of defeat; his better nature had conquered.