"Lemarc," shouted Max sternly, "come on! Your hands up or you get the same thing."
He had not seen old Marshall Sothern fall. Drennen was on his knees now, his father's head caught up in his lap, his face horrible with the grief upon it as he bent forward. The old man was badly hurt but conscious. His eyes went to David's, his hand sought to close about his son's. And Drennen, leaning lower as he saw the lips framing words, thought that he had not heard aright.
"Thank God!" was what Marshall Sothern was saying.
There had been the one sharp fusillade and the fight was over. Three men lay upon the ground, two of them having caught their death wounds. Sefton sprawled where he had fallen, alone. He would lie there until the life rattled out of his body. Ernestine, sobbing a moment, then very still, was over Kootanie George's body, her poor frail hands already red with his blood as she sought to lift him a little. George was looking up at her wonderingly. He did not understand; he could not understand yet. If she didn't love him, then why did she look at him like that?
Lemarc, his dark face a study in anger and despair, lifted his two arms. Max, his eyes hard upon his prisoner, strode forward to disarm him and take him into closer custody. So, even yet, since neither Marshall Sothern nor Kootanie had uttered a loud outcry, the lieutenant was unconscious of all that had happened so few steps behind him.
The sun was entangled in the tree tops far to the westward, the red sunset already tingeing the sky. In a little the cool sting of the dusk would be in the air.
Drennen, stooping still further, slipped his arms about Marshall Sothern's body. As his father had carried him to his own dugout, so now did he bear his father into the house. He wanted no help; he was jealous of this duty. And, looking down into the white face at his shoulder, it seemed to him that the pain had gone out of it; that there was a deep joy for this wounded man to be gripped thus in the arms of his son.
Garcia, obeying two curt commands from Drennen, cleared the bearskin of its golden freight and builded a fire in the rock chimney. Very tenderly Drennen lay the old man down, seeking to give him what comfort there was to give.
Ygerne, trembling visibly now, her face white and sick, watched Drennen wordlessly. She had seen everything; she had marked how Sefton lay where Max's and Drennen's bullets had found him; she had seen Kootanie George drop; she had seen Ernestine crouching over him; she had seen and had read the writing in the old man's face. Now her eyes were upon Drennen. And he did not see her.
"Dad," he said, a queer catch in his voice. "Dad.…"