It was a floundering progress. Twice in the first few rods the man went down and she was sorely put to get him on his feet again. But the moving about seemed to bring back his strength, and gradually he became better able to help himself.
They crossed the road and passed through the gap in the fence by the cabin. VB kept muttering wildly, calling the girl Gail, calling for the Captain in a plaintive voice.
"There they are now! See the light?" she whispered. "It is not much. They have covered the window. Yes."
"What?" VB asked, drawing a hand across his eyes.
She repeated her assertion that the men were in the cabin and he halted, refusing drunkenly to go on.
"No," he said, shaking his head. "I'm unarmed—they—"
But she tugged at him and forced him to go beside her. They progressed slowly, painfully, quietly. There was no sound, except VB's hard breathing, for they trod in dust. They approached the house and the girl put out a hand to help her along with the burden.
A thin streak of light came from a window. It seemed to slash deeply into the staggering man, bringing him back to himself. Then a sound, the low, worried nickering of a horse! The Mexican girl felt the arm about her neck tighten and tremble.
"The Captain!" VB muttered, looking about wildly.
He opened his lips to cry out to the horse as the events of the night poured back into his consciousness, to cry his questioning and his sorrow, to put into words the mourning for a faith, but that cry never came from his throat.