skirt
stopped beside him, her glance going over him curiously.

"The little boy," he asked, "do you know if he's all right?"

"The prowlers cut up his face but he'll be all right," she said. "I came
back after his clothes."

"Are you going to look after him?"

"Someone has to and"--she shrugged her shoulders--"I guess I was soft
enough to elect myself for the job. Why--was his mother a friend of
yours?"

"She was my daughter," he said.

"Oh." For a moment the bold, brassy look was gone from her face, like a
mask that had slipped. "I'm sorry. And I'll take care of Billy."

* * * * *

The first objection to his assumption of leadership occurred an hour
later. The prowlers had withdrawn with the coming of full daylight and
wood had been carried from the trees to build fires. Mary, one of the
volunteer cooks, was asking two men to carry her some water when he
approached. The smaller man picked up one of the clumsy containers,
hastily improvised from canvas, and started toward the creek. The other,
a big, thick-chested man, did not move.

"We'll have to have water," Mary said. "People are hungry and cold and
sick."

The man continued to squat by the fire, his hands extended to its
warmth. "Name someone else," he said.

"But----"

She looked at Prentiss in uncertainty. He went to the thick-chested man,
knowing there would be violence and welcoming it as something to help
drive away the vision of Irene's pale, cold face under the red sky.

"She asked you to get her some water," he said. "Get it."

The man looked up at him, studying him with deliberate insolence, then
he got to his feet, his heavy shoulders hunched challengingly.

"I'll have to set you straight, old timer," he said. "No one has
appointed you the head cheese around here. Now, there's the container
you want filled and over there"--he made a small motion with one
hand--"is the creek. Do you know what to do?"

"Yes," he said. "I know what to do."

He brought the butt of the rifle smashing up. It struck the man under
the chin and there was a sharp cracking sound as his jawbone snapped.
For a fraction of a second there was an expression of stupefied
amazement on his face then his eyes glazed and he slumped to the ground
with his broken jaw setting askew.

"All right," he said to Mary. "Now you go ahead and name somebody else."

* * * * *

He found that the prowlers had killed seve