Henry saw the alarmed crowds, he saw the marshal’s hand stretched to seize Adam, he saw most clearly of all the tearful eyes under the beetling brows. Henry’s voice shook, but he made himself clear.
“It’s all right,” said he to the marshal. “Let him be.”
“I saw you were alone,” said Adam. “I said, ‘Henry needs me.’ I know what it is to be alone. I——”
But Adam did not finish his sentence. He found a hand on his, a blue arm linked tightly in his gray arm, he felt himself moved along amid thunderous roars of sound.
“Of course I need you!” said Henry. “I’ve needed you all along.”
Then, old but young, their lives almost ended, but themselves immortal, united, to be divided no more, amid an ever-thickening sound of cheers, the two marched down the street.
—Elsie Singmaster.
III—THE WILDCAT
When Cassius Wyble came down from his mountains to the 2OOO-population metropolis of Clayburg on his half-yearly trip for supplies he thought the old custom of Muster Day had been revived.
No fewer than eleven men in khaki were lounging round the station platform or sitting on the steps of the North America general store. Enlistment posters, too, flared from windows and walls.