Behind was music and the blushing laughter of girls, and a new-made bride; before lay death for themselves from an unseen bullet, or death for the boy who was already a murderer.
Not Maiden nor another woman could hold Lou when danger beckoned. Murray heard his careless jokes, and the sputter of laughter waked by them in the night, and his forehead went hot with sudden wrath.
“He’s the only one going for the fun of it,” he muttered to Ormond. “And, by Heaven! if he hurts the poor little beggar I’ll put a bullet into him myself.” Then he sent his voice out in command: ”There’s to be no rough handling! Remember that, men! The boy’s off his head, and I won’t have him messed with.”
There was a growl out of the dark.
“That’s all very fine, Murray. How if ’e goes plunkin’ lead inter us, eh?”
On the breast of the hill the bush was heavy, and vines tripped them, slashing faces with their thorns, or whipping back with the smarting sting of a supple-jack. The track Roddy had taken lay higher, among the delicate red birches and the straight-limbed matais; and the men climbed for it in haste, for they loved Scannell well, and more than one life was in danger this night.
The underway was rotten with long-fallen boles where the golden and scarlet mosses
