Mac, Mac," cried Trina, her arms about his neck.

"For God's sake, hold up, Doc, will you?" shouted the harness-maker.
"You don't want to kill him, do you?"

Mrs. Ryer and Heise's lame wife were filling the air with their
outcries. Selina was giggling with hysteria. Marcus, terrified, but too
brave to run, had picked up a jagged stone with his left hand and stood
on the defensive. His swollen right arm, from which the shirt sleeve had
been torn, dangled at his side, the back of the hand twisted where the
palm should have been. The shirt itself was a mass of grass stains and
was spotted with the dentist's blood.

But McTeague, in the centre of the group that struggled to hold him, was
nigh to madness. The side of his face, his neck, and all the shoulder
and breast of his shirt were covered with blood. He had ceased to cry
out, but kept muttering between his gripped jaws, as he labored to tear
himself free of the retaining hands:

"Ah, I'll kill him! Ah, I'll kill him! I'll kill him! Damn you, Heise,"
he exclaimed suddenly, trying to strike the harness-maker, "let go of
me, will you!"

Little by little they pacified him, or rather (for he paid but little
attention to what was said to him) his bestial fury lapsed by degrees.
He turned away and let fall his arms, drawing long breaths, and looking
stupidly about him, now searching helplessly upon the ground, now gazing
vaguely into the circle of faces about him. His ear bled as though it
would never stop.

"Say, Doctor," asked Heise, "what's the best thing to do?"

"Huh?" answered McTeague. "What--what do you mean? What is it?"

"What'll we do to stop this bleeding here?"

McTeague did not answer, but looked intently at the blood-stained bosom
of his shirt.

"Mac," cried Trina, her face close to his, "tell us something--the best
thing we can do to stop your ear bleeding."

"Collodium," said the dentist.

"But we can't get to that right away; we--"

"There's some ice in our lunch basket," broke in Heise. "We brought it
for the beer; and take the napkins and make a bandage."

"Ice," muttered the dentist, "sure, ice, that's the word."

Mrs. Heise and the Ryers were looking after Marcus's broken arm. Selina
sat on the slope of the grass, gasping and sobbing. Trina tore the
napkins into strips, and, crushing some of the ice, made a bandage for
her husband's head.'

The party resolved itself into two groups; the Ryers and Mrs. Heise
bending over Marcus, while t