Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 10, 2025
But Drennen, snarling, his fury blind and raging higher, took no heed of the weapon's menace. The thing in Lemarc's eyes, in Sefton's, was the thing a man must know when he sees it; and yet Drennen came on. But another man saw and understood before it was too late. Marshall Sothern who had followed Drennen with long strides, was now close to his side.
Out of a clear sky, his words falling crisply through the little silence, he demanded of no one in particular and in all seeming innocence: "What's happened to No-luck Drennen? I ain't seen him here of late." Kootanie George turned his head slowly and stared at him. Rand was fingering his cards, his eyes hastily busied with their corners. George turned from him to Ernestine.
She had seen everything; she had marked how Sefton lay where Max's and Drennen's bullets had found him; she had seen Kootanie George drop; she had seen Ernestine crouching over him; she had seen and had read the writing in the old man's face. Now her eyes were upon Drennen. And he did not see her. "Dad," he said, a queer catch in his voice. "Dad. . . ."
The girl is no better than her companions?" "They merely kill a man for his gold," returned Drennen steadily. "She plays with a man's soul and kills it when she has done." There were deep lines of sadness about Sothern's mouth; the eyes which forsook Drennen's face and turned to the glitter of the stars were unutterably sad. "The sins of the father . . ." he muttered.
And then those who watched saw the middle finger of Drennen's hand drawn back from the flesh of George's neck, saw it bent back and back, still further back until it was a pure wonder that Drennen held on, back and back. . . . And then there was a little snap of a bone broken and Drennen's hand fell away and Kootanie George, drawing a long, sobbing breath, rolled clear of him and slowly rose to his feet.
He had reeled, had paused as he caught and steadied himself, had gone on drunkenly. There were a score of men up and down the short street. Already some of them had marked his coming. Ygerne turned hurriedly to the left, put the line of houses between her and the street, passing back doors quickly on her way to Père Marquette's. Only once did Drennen stop.
A swift anger vaguely tinged with dread leaped into Drennen's heart. She was humming a line of Garcia's little song: "Dios! It is sweet to be young and to love!" For David Drennen, in whose mouth the husks of life were dry and harsh and bitter, a miracle had happened. Nor was that miracle any the less a golden wonder because to other men in other times it had been the same.
Very tenderly Drennen lay the old man down, seeking to give him what comfort there was to give. Ygerne, trembling visibly now, her face white and sick, watched Drennen wordlessly.
Drennen two weeks ago had left the Settlement with his last cent gone in a meagre grub stake; now he was back and he had made a strike. A strike such as no man here had ever dropped his pick into in all of the ragged years of adventuresome search; a strike which could not be a week's walk from MacLeod's, a strike which might mean millions to the first few who would stake out claims.
"But, m'sieu," smiled Père Marquette, pushing the money back toward his latest guest, "one does not pay to-night! It is fifty year . . ." "I pay my way wherever I go," cut in Drennen curtly. "Will you give me my change?" Marquette lifted his two hands helplessly. Never had a man paid for drink upon such an occasion, and this was the fiftieth!
Word Of The Day
Others Looking