“Pop-pa,” they shouted, with all the power of their childish lungs. The men released them, and, with a rush, they hurled themselves upon the small person of their father.
Scipio set a bundle he was carrying upon the floor and scrambled Jamie into his arms and kissed him. Then he kissed Vada. After that he stood up, and, in a peculiarly dazed fashion gazed about him, out of a pair of blackened and bloodshot eyes, while the children continued to cling to him.
The two onlookers never took their eyes off him. Sunny Oak gazed with unfeigned astonishment and alarm, but Bill merely stared. The little man was a pitiable object. His clothes were tattered. His face was bruised and cut, and dry blood was smeared all round his mouth. Both eyes were black, and in one of them the white was changed to a bright scarlet.
James’ men had done their work all too well. They had handled their victim with the brutality of the savages they were.
Scipio let his eyes rest on Bill, and, after a moment’s hesitation, as though gathering together his still scattered wits, spoke his gratitude.
“It was real kind of you lendin’ me Gipsy. I set her back in the barn. She’s come to no harm. She ain’t got saddle-sore, nor––nor nothin’. Maybe she’s a bit tuckered, but she’s none the worse, sure.”
Bill clicked his tongue, but made no other response. At that moment it would have been impossible for him to have expressed the thoughts passing through his fierce mind. Sunny, however, was more superficial. Words were bursting from his lips. And when he spoke his first remark was a hopeless inanity.
“You got back?” he questioned.
Scipio’s poor face worked into the ghost of a smile.
“Yes,” he said. And the awkwardness of the meeting drove him to silently caressing his children.