THREE:"Well, Backfield, I'm sorry about this young scapegrace of mine. But boys will be boys, you know, and we'll make it all right about that cow. I promise you it won't happen again."His looks would be only slightly marred. It was the optic nerve which had been destroyed, and so far there was nothing ugly in the eyes themselves, except their vacant rolling. The eyelashes and eyebrows had been burnt off, but they were growing again, and a scar on his cheek and another on his forehead were not likely to show much in a few weeks' time. But all the life, the light, the soul had gone out of his face��it was like a house which had been gutted, with walls and roof still standing, yet with its essential quality gone from it, a ruin.
THREE:"Nature!" snorted Reuben��"wot's Nature, I'd lik to know?"
THREE:"Well, I shan't go scolding you, lad," said Joseph Backfield, "fur I reckon you've bin punished enough. Though it wur unaccountable lucky you dudn't git anything worse. I hear as how Pix and Hearsfield are to be transported, and there'll be prison for some thirty more. Wot dud yer want to go mixing up in them things fur?"
THREE:But Reuben hardly enjoyed his position as a hero. He succeeded in breaking free from the crowd, now beginning to busy itself once more with Mexico Bill, who was showing signs of returning consciousness, and plunged into the mists that spread their frost-smelling curds over the lower slopes of Boarzell.
THREE: