The onlookers, knowing something of the tragedy, drew back, watching McGill, who still stared into the face of the man who had robbed him of everything.
"Do you remember what I told you?" he questioned, inflexibly.
Barclay nodded, and the woman shrilled again:
"Don't let him do it, men. Don't!"
"There ain't room for us here," went on McGill.
"Only to-night," supplicated his wife, the frost-bitten spots in her cheeks no more pallid than the rest of her countenance. "He can't go. Don't you see he isn't able? Wait, Dan; I'll go if you want me to"—she struggled forward. "I'll go, but he'll die if you send him out."
"It's always him, ain't it?" said the miner, slowly. "You seem to want him pretty bad, Alice. Well, you can have him. And you can stay, both of you." He drew his cap down over his grizzled hair and turned toward the door, but Hopper saw the light in his eye and intercepted him.
"I'll go home with you, Dan," said he.
"I ain't going home."
"You mean—"