Edwin Balmer

“ As they ate, Alice noted Jim's plain relief that—as some one commented—it would be their last supper before reaching the ship. She looked at Kirk and met his eyes. She saw there, rather than relief, a regret over the ending of their adventure which she knew he would not express, for no one could comprehend it but she. There was no opportunity for him to speak to her alone. Immediately after supper the older people, exhausted, prepared to sleep in the larger hut. She was to share the clay floor with them. The other two went to watch and sleep with the Mexicans in the smaller hut. ”

“ That the lot had brought death for that one was lost in the flood of relief that it kept life—life—in this man so newly loved. But fear for him rushed as quickly back. She knew now he had drawn the white bead of safety and he would not tell her. Why? Because he knew Jim might not dare die. The mere drawing of glass beads from a jar could not change their characters, and as she reckoned with this she caught Kirk's hand frantically.
"Kirk, he must go back. You must let him do it. Don't let him think for a moment that you will go back to get their bullets if he doesn't, and he will have to." ”

“ Jim wet his lips again. "It is mine as much as his." He seemed to force himself on. "You needn't be afraid if I'm drawn; I won't fail, Kirk," he said.
"How shall we draw?" Kirk asked.
Alice looked about the hut swiftly before there could be any change in the plans. A Mexican earth jar with a neck large enough to admit a hand stood on the floor in the moonlight. She pounced upon it and emptied it of the dry meal it contained. Two large Mexican glass bead buttons, sewed on the sleeve of her riding habit, glinted at her. One was black, the other white. ”

“ The way began to widen and descend gentle, smiling, green slopes, brightened further and further ahead, as the sun, striking over the mountain range in the rear, lit field after field, painted a white strip of shore to bound them, and then showed the sea, purple, blue, green, and now glinting, as the breakers, rolling in, caught the rays. ”

“ SHE turned in challenge to Jim. He wet his lips. "But he—the one who drops back—doesn't take any more upon himself than he's in for anyway," Jim said. "Correal's orders are to shoot down us—the men. Correal said he'd fire the first shot at us himself—high; then, if one dropped back, he'd yell to his men to shoot that one to make sure of him, and the rest of you get away. So the one who drops back doesn't take any more than is coming if he doesn't do it. He merely takes it alone for the rest."
"But Kirk has no more obligation to be that one than you because he offers."
"Alice!" Kirk cried. ”

“ As she turned before she entered their hut, she saw Kirk take something from his pocket and fling it far down the gorge.
THE seven rode silently down the valley. The moon in the cloudless sky lighted all of the trail and made the path safe. Before the shadow of the mountains to the west reached over the gorge, the peaks on the east stood out, gray and distinct, before the pale spread of the dawn, and the road, rising from the river, climbed high up on the flank of the mountain, and turned into the defile out of the valley. ”

“ She tore them off and dropped them into the jar.
"One is black, one white," she recalled to Kirk. "You've no obligation to do it unless you draw the black one." She offered the jar first to him. He hesitated, then, looking at Reilly, took the jar from her.
"Thank you, Alice," he said. "We will draw after you are gone."
"No, here before me. I shan't let you do it unless you're drawn!"
"We will draw," Kirk quieted her.
He led her out, and, obeying him, she went up to the other hut. ”

“ Commercially, she knew, he commanded many thousands of men, but here no one of the Mexicans looked to him instinctively as the leader—no one, even, of the four older people who at home told her he was most to be admired.
The two young men disappeared in the bush above the trail. Impulsively Alice dismounted and gave her bridle and Kirk's to a Mexican and followed. ”

“ IN the little Mexican village on the shore, under care of the marines from the American cruiser, the six awaited the subsidence of the surf to go out to the ship.
Alice sat alone with Kirk. They could hear the clatter of the machine gun which the Federal forces had dragged up toward the mountain to attack the insurrecto position. ”