His voice was not loud, but harsh, and keyed high, as if his throat was dry. I think the next sound was a groan from the boy, and his revolver wavered and slipped in his fingers.
"It's the gun you gave me," he said, "an' I can't kill you with it."
Borden turned his head painfully from side to side, saw a stick, bent down laboriously, got it at last, and by its aid raised himself to his feet. That seemed to exhaust him. He stood for a moment, inert and useless, like an old man. Then he began to hoist himself forward step by step to the door. Iron will, just iron, it was. And it was terrible to see him—one shoulder and arm swinging low and limp, his knees lifting high as if knotted with stiffness, his head protruding in intense effort. The distance was short, but long, long for him.
"Keep back! keep back!" cried Dempster. He himself was half out of the door, gripping his gun with one hand, warding the relentless Marshal off with the other.
Borden answered nothing, another step.
"You've got to stop!" begged Dempster. "Don't make me kill you, an' I can't let you in. Go back, go back! We fought together, we marched together, we ate and slept together, Dick—for God's sake, don't come nearer!"
One step at a time, putting his stick forward bit by bit and dragging himself to it with his queer uplifting knees, Borden moved himself ahead. There was something stern and inhuman in this persistence. So it went to the last bitter inch. Then Borden's breast touched the rifle's muzzle. The two men stood looking into each other's eyes, measuring life and death.
That is a minute in my mind forever. The young fellow had dragged himself a little way from behind his log—half-following, fascinated, supporting himself by his two hands—and was staring at them. The empty bucket lay on its side in the sunshine. The wind whined and whined through the trees. And the wife's haggard face peered over Dempster's shoulder in the door.
"I arrest you!"