Page:West of Dodge (1926).pdf/247

 He went down the steps, shook hands with them, with a hearty word of commendation for each.

"If they open my heart when I'm dead, as the old queen said, they'll find your names engraved there," he said. "But I can't accept your sacrifice, gentlemen. For it would be a sacrifice with only a handful of us against them. You are honorably discharged. Go home; leave it to me alone."

Dr. Hall and Elizabeth had gone to the window when the scouts arrived, where they had stood listening to the report from the road, and the subsequent proposals and arguments. As Major Cottrell turned from his few valiant townsmen, after dismissing them honorably, Hall saw him stumble at the threshold of the court house, and heard his rifle fall.

Hall ran to the corridor, where he found the butcher supporting Major Cottrell, who was standing with a hand braced against the wall, his head drooping, making a determined struggle to keep on his feet. The old man grappled weakly to support himself against Hall's shoulder, lifting his head for a moment, mortal agony in his appealing eyes.

They carried Major Cottrell into his disordered office, where the pile of records which he would have given his life to defend stood in the middle of the floor. He was unconscious when they laid him on the floor, Hall's coat under his head. His gaunt white face was drawn more in an expression of sadness than suffering, as if the thought of yielding the county he had built out of the wilderness, and the town he had fathered in his pride, over to men too base to stand in their defense, had overwhelmed him and broken his heart.