I'll keep
watch until you come back."
In an hour Lawanne returned with two men from the settlement. They
laid the bodies out decently on a bed and left the two men to keep
vigil until sundown, when Hollister and Lawanne would take up that
melancholy watch for the night.
"I wonder," Hollister said to Lawanne, as they walked home, "what'll
become of Bland? Will he give himself up, or will they have to hunt
him?"
"Neither, I think," Lawanne answered slowly. "A man like that is
certainly not himself when he breaks out like that. Bland has the
cultural inheritance of his kind. You could see that he was stupefied
by what he had done. When he rushed away into the woods I think it was
just beginning to dawn on him, to fill him with horror. He'll never
come back. You'll see. He'll either go mad, or in the reaction of
feeling he'll kill himself."
They went into Lawanne's cabin. Lawanne brought out a bottle of
brandy. He looked at the shaking of his fingers as he poured for
Hollister and smiled wanly.
"I don't go much on Dutch courage, but I sure need it now," he said.
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