almost at the same instant, the rifles snapping
together. Too close to miss a target like that, and Sefton, clutching
at his horse's mane, slipped from the saddle and to the ground.

"Lemarc," shouted Max sternly, "come on! Your hands up or you get the
same thing."

He had not seen old Marshall Sothern fall. Drennen was on his knees
now, his father's head caught up in his lap, his face horrible with the
grief upon it as he bent forward. The old man was badly hurt but
conscious. His eyes went to David's, his hand sought to close about
his son's. And Drennen, leaning lower as he saw the lips framing
words, thought that he had not heard aright.

"Thank God!" was what Marshall Sothern was saying.

There had been the one sharp fusillade and the fight was over. Three
men lay upon the ground, two of them having caught their death wounds.
Sefton sprawled where he had fallen, alone. He would lie there until
the life rattled out of his body. Ernestine, sobbing a moment, then
very still, was over Kootanie George's body, her poor frail hands
already red with his blood as she sought to lift him a little. George
was looking up at her wonderingly. He did not understand; he could not
understand yet. If she didn't love him, then why did she look at him
like that?

Lemarc, his dark face a study in anger and despair, lifted his two
arms. Max, his eyes hard upon his prisoner, strode forward to disarm
him and take him into closer custody. So, even yet, since neither
Marshall Sothern nor Kootanie had uttered a loud outcry, the lieutenant
was unconscious of all that had happened so few steps behind him.

The sun was entangled in the tree tops far to the westward, the red
sunset already tingeing the sky. In a little the cool sting of the
dusk would be in the air.

Drennen, stooping still further, slipped his arms about Marshall
Sothern's body. As his father had carried him to his own dugout, so
now did he bear his father into the house. He wanted no help; he was
jealous of this duty. And, looking down into the white face at his
shoulder, it seemed to him that the pain had gone out of it; that there
was a deep joy for this wounded man to be gripped thus in the arms of
his son.

Garcia, obeying two curt commands from Drennen, cleared the bearskin of
its golden freight and builded a fire in the rock chimney. Very
tenderly Drennen lay the old man down, seeking to give him what comfort
there was to give.

Ygerne, tre