At first the encampment shouted him off, but presently Johnny became aware of loud talking, of angry shouts, of a buzzing, as from a sundered hornets' nest, which swept the clearing. He whirled to face the newcomer as Keleher slumped at his feet, clawing the ground and gasping, "I don't ... surrender ... Johnny Hope. Only give ... me ... time to catch my wind ... and...."
They turned to Johnny Hope, all of them, their new leader. For Keleher had spoken those words, then fell forward on his face. Three men carried him off to a tent, where two women brought vessels of water.
"They went looking for the three missing ones, Hope."
"What can we do?"
"The Robots."
"Tell us, Hope."
"What they did once they might do again."
Johnny laughed as reaction from his ordeal set in. They crowded around him, flies swarming for honey. They hadn't given him a chance in the fight, but now because Keleher had cracked his own ribs instead of Johnny's, Johnny was their leader. It was a job he neither wanted nor would tolerate.
"What they're trying to say," Amos Westler told him, "is that they found Tom Burwood not far from here."