Page:The Baron of Diamond Tail (1923).pdf/139

 Barrett, Alma questioning him briefly, breathlessly, in the same tongue from time to time. They did not hear Barrett's approach, although the weary horse started' at his step. He paused near them, outside the beam of light that reached out into the shrubbery through the open door.

Teresa stood just in the edge of this diffused beam, her figure sharp in contrast with the other two, holding her hands clasped before her bosom in pose of supplication. Now and again she moaned and shook her: head, whether in sympathy for the man who had fallen, or for his own peril, Barrett had no way of knowing.

Whatever the old man was saying, Barrett knew that he could make him out only a pale sort of heroin that plot. He did not know, even, whether there was much sympathy or consideration for him in any bosom there, for he had reduced himself to an infinitesimal point in his own contempt for the way he had conducted himself at Eagle Rock camp that day.

A man would have slung his gun and cleaned them up before Fred Grubb ever appeared at the door; a man would have come out of it with a feeling of sufficiency in himself, and not as a boy led out of trouble by the hand.

A lame figure of a hero, indeed, standing there in the dark like a spy. He had the thought of sneaking back to Fred and sharing with him the salmon and crackers. He remembered in time to stop this retreat that he was there under orders; he advanced into the beam of light, and approached the door.

Alma turned at the sound of his step, Manuel start-