ll abruptly
turned, after they had passed her, and spoke. They did not hear what
he said. They scarcely noted his pause, for in but two or three steps
he was with them again, grimly hurrying to where lay the man they had
come to love.

CHAPTER XII

A DISASTROUS BLOW

In after years it all came back to Dick as a horrible nightmare of
unreality, that tragic night's events and those which followed. The
grim setting of the coroner's jury, where men with bestial, bruised,
and discolored faces sat awkwardly or anxiously, with their hats on
their knees, in a hard stillness; the grave questions of the coroner,
coupled with the harsh, decisive interrogations of the prosecuting
attorney, who had been hastily summoned from the county seat across
the hills; and there in the other room, quiet, and at rest, the
faithful old man who had given his life in defense of his friends.

Dick gave his testimony in a dulled voice that sounded strange and
unfamiliar, telling all that the engineer had said of the assault. He
had one rage of vindictiveness, when the three men from Denver were
identified as the ones who had attacked the engineer, and regretted
that they were alive to meet the charge against them. He but vaguely
understood the technical phraseology of Doctor Mills when he stated
that Bells Park died from the shock of the blows and kicks rained on
him in that last valorous chapter of his life. He heard the decision
placing the responsibility on the men from Denver, saw the sheriff and
his deputies step forward and lay firm hands on their arms and lead
them away; and then was aroused by the heavy entrance of the camp
undertaker to make ready, for the quiet sleep, the body of Bells Park,
the engineer.

"He belongs to us," said Dick numbly; "to Bill and me. He died for the
Croix d'Or. The Croix d'Or will keep him forever, as it would if he
had lived and we had made good."

He saw, as they trudged past the High Light, that its door was shut,
and remembered, afterward, a tiny white notice pasted on the glass.
The trail across the divide was of interminable length, as was that
other climb up to the foot of the yellow cross on the peak, and to the
grave he had caused to be dug beside that other one which Bells had
guarded with jealous care, planted with flowers, weeded, and where a
faded, rough little cross bore the rudely carved inscription:

A DISASTEROUS BLOW
MEHITA