“I’ll take it down,” said Byers, his eyes glowing through his spectacles on either side of his long nose.
“Go ahead,” said Carhart. “And good luck to you!”
The instrument man took the message and started down the hill. Halfway there was a puff of smoke from Flagg’s camp, and he fell. It was so peaceful there on the hillside, so quiet and so bright with sunshine, the men could hardly believe their eyes. Then they roused. One lost his head and fired. But Dimond, his eyes blazing, swearing under his breath, handed his rifle to Carhart and went running and leaping down the hillside. When he reached the fallen man, he bent over him and took the letter from his hand and, standing erect, waved it. Still holding it above his head, he went on down the hill and disappeared among the rocks that surrounded the camp.
Late that afternoon Flagg’s men straggled out through the hollow, bound for Red Hills. And every large rock on either hillside concealed a man and a rifle. Here and there certain rocks failed in their duty, and Flagg’s men caught glimpses of blue-steel muzzles. So they did not linger.
For a number of reasons, after an attempt to communicate by wire with a little New Hampshire town, and after an unavailing search for representatives of the clergy at La Paz and at Red Hills, it was decided to bury the instrument man where he had fallen. “Near the track,” Young Van suggested. “He would like it that way, I think.”
At six in the morning a long procession filed out of the camp. At the head went the rude coffin on the shoulders of six surveyors and foremen. Paul Carhart and Tiffany followed, the chief with a prayer book in his hand; and after them came the men. The grave was ready. The laborers and the skilled workmen stood shoulder to shoulder in a wide circle, baring their heads to the sun. Carhart opened the book and slowly turned the pages in a quiet so intense that the rustle of the leaves could be heard by every man there. For the ungoverned emotions of these broken outcasts were now swayed to thoughts of death and of what may come after.
“I am the resurrection and the life ...” Carhart read the immortal words splendidly, in his even, finely modulated voice. “... I know that my Redeemer liveth.... Yet in my flesh shall I see God.... We brought nothing into this world and it is certain we can carry nothing out.... For man walketh in a vain shadow, and disquieteth himself in vain; he heapeth up riches, and cannot tell who shall gather them.”