"I reckon I've got my second wind now," he lamely announced. "Mebby
thar's a leetle mite more work left in me yit atter all," and he
started back, stumbling with the ache of tired bones, to the task he
had renounced, while his fellows grumbled a little and followed his
lead.
Throughout the day Brent had felt himself an ineffective. He had done
what he could but his activities had always seemed to be on the less
strenuous fringe of things like a bee who works on the edge of a honey
comb.
Now as the replenished fire leaped high and the hills resounded to an
occasional peal of unseasonable thunder the figure of the woman who had
assumed a man's responsibility became a pattern of action. In the
flare and the shadow he watched it, fascinated. It was always in the
forefront, frequently in actual but unconsidered peril, leading like
the white plume of Navarre.
It was all as lurid and as turgid a picture as things seen in nightmare
or remembered from mythology--this turmoil of emergency effort through
a fire-lit night of storm and flood; figures thrown into exaggeration
as the flames leaped or dwindled--faces haggard with weariness.
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