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.
He looked about to the others for his cue. What he saw disturbed him. Shorty Kilrain, like a boy caught playing truant, edged little by little back against the rock; Butch Conklin, his eyes staring, had grown waxy pale; Steve Nash himself was sullen and gloomy rather than defiant.
And all this because of a grey man far past the prime of life who ran stumbling, panting, toward them. At his nearer approach a flash of understanding touched Ufert. Perhaps it was the sheer bulk of the newcomer; perhaps, more than this, it was something of stern dignity that oppressed the boy with awe. He fought against the feeling, but he was uneasy; he wanted to be far away from that place.
Straight upon them the big grey man strode and halted in front of Nash.
He said, his voice harsh and broken by his running: "I ordered you to bring him to me unharmed. What does this mean, Nash?"
The cowpuncher answered sulkily: "Glendin sent us out."
"Don't lie. You sent yourself and took these men. I've seen Glendin."
"But here you are four against one. Go down and bring him out to me alive!"
"You said you wanted no odds against any one man."
"When a man and a woman stand together," answered Nash, "they're worse than a hundred. That devil, Sally Fortune, is down there with him."
A gun cracked from the house; the bullet chipped the rock with an evil clang, and the flake of stone whirled through the air and landed at the feet of Drew.
"There's your answer," said Nash. "But we've got the rat cornered."
"Wrong again. Calamity Ben is going to live--"
"Duffy says that he gave his horse away to Bard. Glendin has called back your posse. Ride, Nash! Or else go down there unarmed and bring Bard up to me."