Panting, dripping with sweat, his face contorted
terribly by his effort, he came at last behind that rocky shoulder
which commanded the approach to the old house.
He found seven men sheltered there, keeping up a steady, dropping fire
on the house. McNamara sat propped against a rock, a clumsy, dirty
bandage around his thigh; Isaacs lay prone, a stained rag twisted
tightly around his shoulder; Lovel sat with his legs crossed, staring
stupidly down to the steady drip of blood from his left forearm.
But Ufert, Kilrain, Conklin, and Nash maintained the fight; and Drew
wondered what casualties lay on the other side.
At his rush, at the sound of his heavy footfall over the rocks, the four
turned with a single movement; Ufert covered him with a rifle, but Nash
knocked down the boy's arm.
"We've done talkin'; it's our time to listen; understand?"
Ufert, gone sullen, obeyed. He was at that age between youth and manhood
when the blood, despite the songs of the poets, runs slow, cold; before
the heart has been called out in love, or even in friendship; before
fear or hate or anything saving a deep egoism has possessed the brain.
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