s.

"What was it?" whispered the old man. "What's the matter with him? Is
he mad at David?"

She shook her head, putting a finger on her lip in sign of silence, and
moving away to the other side of the fire. She felt the strain in the
men and knew it was her place to try and keep the peace. But a sense
of forlorn helplessness amid these warring spirits lay heavily on her
and she beckoned to the old servant, wanting him near her as one who,
no matter how dire the circumstances, would never fail her.

"Yes, he's angry," she said when they were out of earshot. "I suppose
it's about David. But what can we do? We can't make David over into
another man, and we can't leave him behind just because he's not as
strong as the rest of us. I feel as if we were getting to be savages."

The old man gave a grunt that had a note of cynical acquiescence, then
held up his hand in a signal for quiet. The thud of a horse's hoofs
came from the outside night. With a quick word to get the supper
ready, she ran forward and stood in the farthest rim of the light
waiting for her betrothed.

David was a pitiable spectacle. The dust lay thick on his face, save
round his eyes, whence he had rubbed it, leaving the sockets looking
unnaturally sunken and black. His collar was open and his neck rose
bare and roped with sinews. There was but one horse at the end of the
trail rope. As he slid out of the saddle, he dropped the rope on the
ground, saying that the other animal was sick, he had left it dying he
thought. He had found them miles off, miles and miles--with a weak
wave of his hand toward the south--near an alkaline spring where he
supposed they had been drinking. The other couldn't move, this one he
had dragged along with him. The men turned their attention to the
horse, which, with swollen body and drooping head, looked as if it
might soon follow its mate. They touched it, and spoke together, brows
knit over the trouble, not paying any attention to David, who, back in
the flesh, was sufficiently accounted for.

Susan was horrified by his appearance. She had never seen him look so
much a haggard stranger to himself. He was prostrate with fatigue, and
throughout the day he had nursed a sense of bitter injury. Now back
among them, seeing the outspread signs of their rest, and with the good
smell of their food in his nostrils, this rose to the pitch of
hysterical rage, ready to vent itself at the first excuse. The sight