And Gandil, from the South Seas, growled with averted
eyes: “This is the most fool stunt the
chief has ever pulled.”
“Right, pal,” answered Mansie. “You
take a snake in out of the cold, and it bites you
when it comes to in the warmth; but the chief has
started, and there ain’t nothing that’ll
make him stop, except maybe God or McGurk.”
And Black Gandil answered with his evil, sudden grin:
“Maybe McGurk, but not God.”
They started on again with Garry Patterson and Dick
Wilbur riding close on either side of Pierre, supporting
his limp body. It delayed the whole gang, for
they could not go on faster than a jog-trot. The
wind, however, was falling off in violence. Its
shrill whistling ceased, at length, and they went
on, accompanied only by the harsh crunching of the
snow underfoot.
Consciousness returned to Pierre slowly. Many
a time his eyes opened, and he saw nothing, but when
he did see and hear it was by vague glimpses.
He heard the crunch of the snow underfoot; he heard
the panting and snorting of the horses; he felt the
swing and jolt of the saddle beneath him; he saw the
grim faces of the long-riders, and he said: “The
law has taken me.”
Thereafter he let his will lapse, and surrendered
to the sleepy numbness which assailed his brain in
waves. He was riding without support by this
time, but it was an automatic effort. There was
no more real life in him than in a dummy figure.
It was not the effect of the blow. It was rather
the long exposure and the overexertion of mind and
body during the evening and night. He had simply
collapsed beneath the strain.
But an old army man has said: “Give me
a soldier of eighteen or twenty. In a single
day he may not march quite so far as a more mature
man or carry quite so much weight. He will go
to sleep each night dead to the world. But in
the morning he awakens a new man. He is like a
slate from which all the writing has been erased.
He is ready for a new day and a new world. Thirty
days of campaigning leaves him as strong and fresh
as ever.
“Thirty days of campaigning leaves the old soldier
a wreck. Why? Because as a man grows older
he loses the ability to sleep soundly. He carries
the nervous strain of one day over to the next.
Life is a serious problem to a man over thirty.
To a man under thirty it is simply a game. For
my part, give me men who can play at war.”
So it was with Pierre le Rouge. He woke with
a faint heaviness of head, and stretched himself.
There were many sore places, but nothing more.
He looked up, and the slant winter sun cut across his
face and made a patch of bright yellow on the wall
beside him.
Next he heard a faint humming, and, turning his head,
saw a boy of fourteen or perhaps a little more, busily
cleaning a rifle in a way that betokened the most
expert knowledge of the weapon. Pierre himself
knew rifles as a preacher knows his Bible, and as he
lay half awake and half asleep he smiled with enjoyment
to see the deft fingers move here and there, wiping
away the oil. A green hand will spend half a
day cleaning a gun, and then do the work imperfectly;
an expert does the job efficiently in ten minutes.
This was an expert.
