They brought Probyn ashore between them, and Sewell, who kept his head, left them a moment and went straight up the bank, where he came upon Hetty standing with hands closed at her sides. She could see very little beyond a group of men bending over something that lay between them.
"Go back to the shanty. Make a big fire and some coffee," he said.
Hetty did not seem to understand him. "Tomlinson held on to him, but he struck a stone," she said. "I couldn't see any more, but—of course—you brought him out? Is he hurt?"
Sewell looked astonished. "Hurt!" he said. "You must know that the man is dead."
Then comprehension dawned upon him, as he remembered that he had for several anxious moments fancied that the man who seized Trooper Probyn would drive with him down the rapid.
"I scarcely think Tom is any the worse—and Ingleby appears to have got off with a bruise on his head," he said.
He saw the sudden relief in Hetty's face, for she had not remembered the need of reticence then; but she turned away from him silently, and he went back to the river, where the group made way for him. Sewell, who held only an unremunerative claim, was already an influence in the Green River country.
The light was rapidly failing, but he could still see the faces of the men, who turned to him as though uncertain what to do. Tomlinson stood still among the rest, and his voice and attitude were both unmistakably compassionate.
"I hove him into the creek. I 'most wish I hadn't now," he said. "He was young and had no sense, but there was good hard sand in him."
Sewell turned, and looked down on Trooper Probyn, who lay very still, a rigid shape in sodden uniform, with the water running from him, and his face partly turned away from them, which was just as well.