"Take a drink," said one of the men to the girl, reaching out his cup, after glancing at his companion. But the girl only shook her head, and stepped further back. "Thought you said she was civilized?" "She, she is civilized; but isn't quite civilized enough to get drunk yet," hiccoughed Forty-nine, as he battered his tin-cup on the table, and again foiled the hand just reached for his pistol. The boy saw this, and stole back through the dark behind his sister. To remove the cap and touch his tongue to the tubes of the guns was the work only of a second, and again he was back by the side of the men. Eagerly all the time the girl kept looking over her shoulders into the dark, deep woods, for Logan. The thunder rolled, and it began to grow very dark. She went up to Forty-nine, on pretense of helping him to more wine, and whispered sharply in his ear.
The old man only stared at her in helpless wonder. His head rolled from one side to the other like that of an idiot. His wits were utterly under water.
And now, as the darkness thickened and the men's actions could hardly be observed, one of them pushed the drunken man over, clutched his pistols, and the two sprang up together.
"I've got 'em, Gar," cried Emens, and the two started back for their guns. The girl stood in the way, and Dosson threw his massive body upon her and bore her to the earth, while the other, awkwardly holding the two pistols in one hand, groped in the dark for their guns.
The storm began to beat terribly. The mountains fairly trembled from the rolling thunder. As the man was about to clutch the guns, he felt rather than saw that a tall figure stood between. That instant a flash of lightning showed John Logan standing there, the boy by his side, and two ugly pistols thrust forward. The man-hunters were unmasked in the fiery light of heaven, and Logan knew them for the first time.
"I will not kill you." He said this with look and action that was grand and terrible. "Take your guns and go! Out into the storm! If God can spare you, I can spare you. Go!"
And by the lightning's light, the two men, with two ugly pistol-nozzles in their faces, took their guns and groped and backed down the mountain into the darkness, where they belonged.