“Bring Bemmon,” Lake said to Craig.
Craig returned with him two minutes later. Bemmon stiffened at the sight of his unearthed cache and color drained away from his face.
“Well?” Lake asked.
“I didn’t”—Bemmon swallowed—“I didn’t know it was there.” And then quickly, “You can’t prove I put it there. You can’t prove you didn’t just now bring it in yourselves to frame me.”
Lake stared at Bemmon, waiting. The others watched Bemmon as Lake was doing and no one spoke. The silence deepened and Bemmon began to sweat as he tried to avoid their eyes. He looked again at the damning evidence and his defiance broke.
“It—if I hadn’t take it it would have been wasted on people who were dying,” he said. He wiped at his sweating face. “I won’t ever do it again—I swear I won’t.”
Lake spoke to Craig. “You and Barber take him to the lookout point.”
“What—” Bemmon’s protest was cut off as Craig and Barber took him by the arms and walked him swiftly away.
Lake turned to Anders. “Get a rope,” he ordered.
Anders paled a little. “A—rope?”
“What else does he deserve?”
“Nothing,” Anders said. “Not—not after what he did.”
On the way out they passed the place where Julia lay. Bemmon had knocked her against the wall with such force that a sharp projection of rock had cut a deep gash in her forehead. A woman was wiping the blood from her face and she lay limply, still unconscious; a frail shadow of the bold girl she had once been with the new life she would try to give them an almost unnoticeable little bulge in her starved thinness.
*
*
*
The lookout point was an outjutting spur of the ridge, six hundred feet from the caves and in full view of them. A lone tree stood there, its dead limbs thrust like white arms through the brown foliage of the limbs that still lived. Craig and Barber waited under the tree, Bemmon between them. The lowering sun shone hot and bright on Bemmon’s face as he squinted back toward the caves at the approach of Lake and the other two.
He twisted to look at Barber. “What is it—why did you bring me here?” There was the tremor of fear in his voice. “What are you going to do to me?”
Barber did not answer and Bemmon turned back toward Lake. He saw the rope in Anders’
hand and his face went white with comprehension.
“No!”
Ht threw himself back with a violence that almost tore him loose. “
Schroeder stepped forward to help hold him and Lake took the rope from Anders. He fashioned a noose in it while Bemmon struggled and made panting, animal sounds, his eyes fixed in horrified fascination on the rope.
When the noose was finished he threw the free end of the rope over the white limb above Bemmon. He released the noose and Barber caught it, to draw it snug around Bemmon’s neck. Bemmon stopped struggling then and sagged weakly. For a moment it appeared that he would faint. Then he worked his mouth soundlessly until words came:
“You won’t—you can’t—really hang me?”
Lake spoke to him:
“We’re going to hang you. What you stole would have saved the lives of ten children. You’ve watched the children cry because they were so hungry and you’ve watched them become too weak to cry or care
