"I got you where there's no comeback!" gritted Goles, and took careful aim at Jan!—but did not fire. He felt a ring of cold metal pressed against his neck and half turned to see what it was. "Don't shoot! Don't!" he begged.
"You—" The word the bartender gritted out could not be heard, because he pulled the trigger as he said it.
Goles sagged down until his knees rested on the deck. Then he fell forward and over the side of the raft. There was the gentlest of splashes, a patch of red—a cluster of bubbles which burst like sighs.
"Well!" said the bartender, and held up the revolver in wonder. "I never thought I'd live to kill a man!" He looked to see how the others had taken it, but they were paying no attention to him. He saw Jan holding the baby and trying to hush its little cries for its mother, while the baby's mother was pressing the tips of her fingers gently against the upper part of the injured woman's right breast.
"You mustn't die! You mustn't die!" Jan said when the baby would let him.
"I don't want to die—not now!" she answered.
The Finn woman looked up and smiled at Jan. "Not die. No, no—not die."
[pg 266]
The raft grounded gently on the beach. Jan took the wounded girl and set out for the top of the sand-hill with her. The bartender took the baby and toiled behind with its mother.