Once more order had grown quietly out of chaos. The men stood here and there talking, chewing tobacco, cursing the thirst which as the minutes dragged by grew ever more tormenting. Already the sun had rolled upward above the flat horizon. Already the desert heat had leaped out at them. A dozen men climbed upon Ben's wagon, thinking to go to Valley City with him to get water there. But he drove them back, threatening them with his big fists and cockney oaths, and they dropped down and watched him as the wagon, rocking and swaying and lurching, was drawn away from them by galloping horses.
At a sharp word from Conniston two of the men brought the broken barrel which had contained whisky to where the discarded revolvers lay glinting in the early light and tossed them into it. And then Brayley came.
"What's up, Con?" he asked, swinging down from his panting horse, his keen eyes taking in the fading excitement, the general idleness. And then, as he stooped forward and looked into the barrel: "Good heavens! What is the matter?"
In a few words Conniston told him. For a moment Brayley said nothing, shaking his head and eying him curiously.
"You sure got your nerve, Con," he said, simply, after a minute.
Conniston laughed shakily. Again a sinking nausea made him faint and dizzy. He could remember now the way the nose of his revolver had sunk into the Chinaman's stomach, could see again all of the horror of the thing which he had done.
"I'm sick, Brayley," he said, unsteadily. "The thing will drive me mad. I—I had to kill a man—and I can't forget how he looked!"
"How you managed to stop 'em jest killing one gets me. Where is he?"
Conniston nodded to the wagon and turned away shuddering. The Half Moon foreman strode over to the wagon and looked closely at the limp body. And then he came to Conniston with long strides.
"Hell," he grunted, disgustedly. "I thought you said you'd killed a man! That's only a Chink!"