The storm subsided; out of it emerged the livid face of Hatburn; and
then, quite easily, he pitched David back across the floor. He lay
there a moment and then stirred, partly rose, beside the mail bag. His
pistol was lying before him; he picked it up.
The other was deliberately moving the dull barrel of a revolver up over
his body. A sharp sense of victory possessed David, and he whispered
his brother's name. Hatburn fired--uselessly. The other's battered lips
smiled.
Goliath, that was the giant's name. He shot easily, securely--once.
Outside, the mail bag seemed weighted with lead. He swayed and
staggered over the rough declivity to the road. It required a
superhuman effort to heave the pack into the stage. The strap with
which he had hitched the horses had turned into iron. At last it was
untied. He clambered up to the enormous height of the driver's seat,
unwrapped the reins from the whipstock, and the team started forward.
He swung to the lurching of the stage like an inverted pendulum;
darkness continually thickened before his vision; waves of sickness
swept up to his head. He must keep the horses on the road, forward the
Government mail!
A grim struggle began between his beaten flesh, a terrible weariness,
and that spirit which seemed to be at once a part of him and a voice.
He wiped the blood from his young brow; from his eyes miraculously blue
like an ineffable May sky.
"Just a tol'able David," he muttered weakly--"only just tol'able!"
BREAD
I
The train rolling rapidly over the broad salt meadows thunderously
entered the long shed of the terminal at the sea.
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