would bring him down through flint and thistles to slay Scott.
The rain pelted to hail that came after the manner of shingle poured from a sack. Ted Douglas stopped one instant; blind, and sick, and with a lump in his throat that meant tears in a woman. Well he knew the men who would flinch before this, and before the certain danger that gathered. Every fibre in him ached for power to take the slack of that unseen chain in his hands, and to wrench it tight, and to sweep it forward by weight of his own savage strength for the good of Mains.
“I must trust ’em. But the Lord only knows if I can trust ’em. Scott’ll burk if he thinks the faces are goin’ to start; an’ there’s Raplin, an’ Lou—’nless the whole thing takes his fancy; an’—oh, God! Can’t I do no more than jest walk?”
But over near twenty miles of high bitter hill-country the boys were running true; and, although they did not know it, the glory of this lay to Ted Douglas’ charge.
The hail shut off with the suddenness of a beaten stick dropped from a kerosene tin; and the boys gasped, stood upright, shook the blood from battered faces and hands, and took hold of the mobs again. Round and underfoot thumped the thunder with the earnestness of a steam-hammer in full work, until the throb was cut now and again by the sharp crackle
