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Updated: May 11, 2025
"I owe you a very great deal, Mr. Sothern, my life I suppose. I'd like to shake hands." Sothern looked at him strangely, both sensing and seeing the change in the man. He put out his hand and it settled hard about Drennen's. "My boy," he said simply, "you have my word for it that you owe me not so much as a word of thanks. You are getting along all right?" "Yes.
As it was it was Max's tread which Drennen's eager ears first heard drawing near swiftly. And a moment later Max himself, with big Kootanie George at his heels and both Marshall Sothern and Ernestine hurrying after them, came running toward the strange building. Drennen at the door, his rifle laid across his arm, met them. "Well?" snapped the officer. "What in hell's name have you done?"
Drennen a year ago would have dropped his face into his hands and would have wept over this letter; now he laughed at it. And the laugh, this first one, was the laugh men came to know as Dave Drennen's laugh. It was like a sneer and a curse and a slap in the face. The hardest blow the fates could deal him had been delivered mercilessly.
They were thoughtful-eyed, thoughtful-souled, their lips silent, their hearts eloquent, as they rode through the quiet street, passing Père Marquette's, Joe's, finally coming abreast of Drennen's old dugout. Drennen drew rein as Ygerne stopped her horse. Her eyes went to the rude cabin, its door open now as it used to be so often even when Drennen had lived there.
"It feels," cried the younger man sharply, his voice ringing with a hint of excitement which had been oddly lacking in him throughout the whole transaction, "like power! Like a power I've been hungering for for ten years! May I have your stenographer for a few moments, sir?" Sothern touched the buzzer and the clerk came in from the outer office. "Take Mr. Drennen's dictation," said Sothern.
What pitiful pictures are projected into the calm of the star-set skies from the wretched turmoil of fevered brains! "I must come to Sefton first!" It was Drennen's last thought that night. His first thought in the dim dawn was: "I must come to Sefton first!" In the thick darkness half way between midnight and the first glimmer of the new day Drennen awoke.
Garcia, with every air of confidence, turned out the high throw and fingered his winnings smilingly. Drennen's hand sought his pocket. "Double again?" he asked bluntly, his hard grey eyes upon the Mexican. Ramon Garcia laughed. "As you will, señor," he said lightly. And under his breath, musically, his eyes going to the nook by the fireplace, "Dios! It is sweet to be young and to love!"
Joe brought the wine, a bucket at which the boy had scrubbed for ten minutes, holding the bottle as the glass bowl held the snow-plant, in a bed of snow. When he offered it a trifle uncertainly to Drennen's gaze and Drennen looked at it and away, nodding carelessly, Joe allowed himself to smile contentedly.
"It's mine!" cried George, his great body half thrown across the table as he tossed out both arms to sweep in his winnings. "Mine, by God!" Ernestine was clapping her hands, her eyes dancing with joy even while they were shot through with malice. Drennen's glance went to her, came back to Kootanie George to rest upon him sneeringly.
"It is Sefton and Marco who return," murmured Garcia, his hand at his mustache, a look of great thoughtfulness in his eyes. "Now there will be another kind of talk!" And he looked regretfully toward the revolver lying under Drennen's bench. Max had heard, whirled and came running back to the door. "Stand aside!" he called to Drennen. "Those men are my prisoners." Drennen made no answer.
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