She saw that he steadied himself by the fence about Marquette's yard and now was moving slowly toward his dugout. He had forgotten to put on his hat and still held it crumpled in his hand. She stood for a little while staring after him. Then she went into the house, closing the door softly.
Drennen, making his slow way homeward, met the men Lemarc and Sefton in a place where the light from an open door streamed across the road. Before Lemarc cried out Drennen had seen the working muscles of his face; the man was in the grip of a terrible rage.
"Damn you," cried Lemarc wildly. "What have you done? That was Ygerne's gun; I know it. If you have laid a hand on her …"
"Stand aside, you fool," snapped Drennen, less angry at Lemarc than at himself for his own physical weakness.
"I tell you," shouted Lemarc, his hand whipping out from under his coat and upward, the lamp rays from the house running down the keen two-edged steel, "if you …"
"Shut up, Marc." It was Captain Sefton's voice, sharp and threatening and steady with its cold anger. Drennen, looking to him, saw in his face a fury no less than Lemarc's but held under control. "Things are bad enough as they are."
"What do I care?" snarled Lemarc, wrenching at the hand Sefton had shot out to his arm. "If you think I'll stand for everything …"
"You'll stand for anything I say stand for," Sefton said coolly. "Remember that, Lemarc. Besides, Ygerne's all right. She can take care of herself, my boy. Come on."
Grumbling, Lemarc allowed himself to be led away. Drennen passed on and to his dugout. He found his bunk in the darkness and sat down upon the edge of it, resting, breathing heavily, his weakness grown already into giddy nausea. Finally, feeling the blood hot against his flesh and knowing that he must get it stopped, he struck a match and lighted a candle. With fingers shaking a little he tore his shirt away at the side and found the hurt. A little, contemptuous grunt escaped him as he made out just how bad it was. The bullet had merely ripped along his side, inflicting a shallow surface wound, coming the nearest thing in the world to missing him altogether. Had he not been pitifully nerveless from another wound not ten days old and his strength exhausted from his first active day since it had been given to him, he could have laughed at this and at the girl who had fired it. He stopped the bleeding as best he might, drew a rude bandage about his body, and sank back on his bunk dizzy and sick.
"And now," he muttered disgustedly, "because I have been a damned fool over a pretty cat with a red mouth and poisonous claws I've got another week of hell before I can go out on the trail again."