“Is he dead?” inquired those in the rear.
“I don’t know.”
“Well, put your hand on his heart.”
“No! I—I don’t want to.”
“What you afraid of?”
“Well, I just don’t want to touch him, that’s all. It’s bad luck. You feel his heart.”
“You can’t always tell by that.”
“How can you tell, then? Pshaw, you fellows make me sick. Here, let me get there. I’ll do it.”
There was a long pause, as the other bent down and laid his hand on the cowpuncher’s breast.
“Well?”
“I can’t tell. Sometimes I think I feel it beat and sometimes I don’t. I never saw a dead man before.”
“Well, you can’t tell by the heart.”
“What’s the good of talking so blame much. Dead or not, let’s carry him back to the house.”
Two or three ran back to the road for planks from the broken bridge. When they returned with these a litter was improvised, and throwing their coats over the body, the party carried it back to the road. The doctor was summoned and declared the cowpuncher to have been dead over half an hour.
“What did I tell you?” exclaimed one of the group.
“Well, I never said he wasn’t dead,” protested the other. “I only said you couldn’t always tell by whether his heart beat or not.”
But all at once there was a commotion. The wagon containing Mrs. Hooven, Minna, and little Hilda drove up.
“Eh, den, my men,” cried Mrs. Hooven, wildly interrogating the faces of the crowd. “Whadt has happun? Sey, den, dose vellers, hev dey hurdt my men, eh, whadt?”
She sprang from the wagon, followed by Minna with Hilda in her arms. The crowd bore back as they advanced, staring at them in silence.
“Eh, whadt has happun, whadt has happun?” wailed Mrs. Hooven, as she hurried on, her two hands out before her, the fingers spread wide. “Eh, Hooven, eh, my men, are you alle righdt?”
She burst into the house. Hooven’s body had been removed to an adjoining room, the bedroom of the house, and to this room Mrs. Hooven—Minna still at her heels—proceeded, guided by an instinct born of the occasion. Those in the outside room, saying no word, made way for them. They entered, closing the door behind them, and through all the rest of that terrible day, no sound nor sight of them was had by those who crowded into and about that house of death. Of all the main actors of the tragedy of the fight in the ditch, they remained the least noted, obtruded themselves the least upon the world’s observation. They were, for the moment, forgotten.
But by now Hooven’s house was the centre of an enormous crowd. A vast concourse of people from Bonneville, from Guadalajara, from the ranches, swelled by the thousands who had that morning participated in the rabbit drive, surged about the place; men and women, young boys, young girls, farmhands, villagers, townspeople, ranchers, railroad employees, Mexicans, Spaniards, Portuguese. Presley, returning from the search for Delaney’s body, had to fight his way to the house again.
And from all this multitude there rose an indefinable murmur. As yet, there was no menace in it, no anger. It was confusion merely, bewilderment, the first long-drawn “oh!” that greets the news of some great tragedy. The people had taken no thought as yet. Curiosity was their dominant impulse. Everyone wanted to see what had been done; failing that, to hear of it, and failing that, to be near the scene of the affair. The crowd of people packed the road in front of the house for nearly a quarter of a mile in either direction. They balanced themselves upon the lower strands of the barbed wire fence in their effort to see over each others’ shoulders; they stood on the seats of their carts, buggies, and farm wagons, a few even upon the saddles of their riding horses. They crowded, pushed, struggled, surged forward and back without knowing why, converging incessantly upon Hooven’s house.
When, at length, Presley got to the gate, he found a carryall drawn up before it. Between the gate and the door of the house a lane had been formed, and as he paused there a moment, a group of Leaguers, among whom were Garnett and Gethings, came slowly from the door carrying old Broderson in their arms. The doctor, bareheaded and in his shirt sleeves, squinting in the sunlight, attended them, repeating at every step:
“Slow, slow, take it easy, gentlemen.”
Old Broderson was unconscious. His face was not pale, no bandages could be seen. With infinite precautions, the men bore him to the carryall and deposited him on the back seat; the rain flaps were let down on one side to shut off the gaze of the multitude.
But at this point a moment of confusion ensued. Presley, because of half a dozen people who stood in his way, could not see what was going on. There were exclamations, hurried movements. The doctor uttered a sharp command and a man ran back to the house returning on the instant with the doctor’s satchel. By this time, Presley was close to the wheels of the carryall and could see the doctor inside the vehicle bending over old Broderson.
“Here it is, here it is,” exclaimed the man who had been sent to the house.
“I won’t need it,” answered the doctor, “he’s dying now.”
At the words a great hush widened throughout the throng near at hand. Some men took off their hats.
“Stand back,” protested the doctor quietly, “stand back, good people, please.”
The crowd bore back a little. In the silence, a woman began to sob. The seconds passed, then a minute. The horses of the carryall shifted their feet and whisked their tails, driving off the flies. At length, the doctor got down from the carryall, letting down the rain-flaps on that side as well.
“Will somebody go home with the body?” he asked. Gethings stepped forward and took his place by the driver. The carryall drove away.
Presley reentered the house. During
