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done a more proper way. Martin turned toward the door without
     question.
    “Wait. Pull off them boots and get your moccasins on. You got a long way to go.” Martin obeyed that, too. “Where’s them pegs
     you whittled out? I figure to make coffins out of the shelves.”
    “Behind the woodbox. Back of the range.” Martin started off into the night.
    Martin Pauley was eight miles on the way to Mathisons’ when the first riders met him. All ten who had ridden the day before
     were on their way over, ridingfresh Mathison horses and leading spares. A buckboard, some distance back, was bringing Mrs. Mathison and Laurie, who must
     no longer be left alone with a war party on the loose.
    The fore riders had been pressing hard, hoping against hope that someone was left alive over there. When they had got
     the word from Martin, they pulled up and waited with him for the buckboard. Nobody pestered at him for details. Laurie
     made a place for him beside her on the buckboard seat, and they rode in silence, the team at a good trot.
    After a mile or two Laurie whimpered, “Oh, Martie... Oh, Martie …” She turned toward him, rested her forehead
     against the shoulder of his brush jacket, and there cried quietly for a little while. Martin sat slack and still,
     nothing left in him to move him either toward her or away from her. Pretty soon she straightened up, and rode beside him in
     silence, not touching him any more.

Chapter Five
    Dawn was near when they got to the house. Amos had been hard at work. He had laid out his brother Henry and the two boys
     in one bedroom, and put their best clothes on them. He had put Martha in another room, and Mrs. Mathison and Laurie took over
     there. All the men went to work, silently, without having to be told what to do. These were lonely, self-sufficient people,
     who saw each other only a few times a year, yet they worked together well, each finding for himself the next thing that needed
     to be done. Some got to work with saw, boxplane, auger, and pegs, to finish the coffins Amos had started, while others
     made coffee, set up a heavy breakfast, and packed rations for the pursuit. They picked up and sorted out the litter of stuff
     the Indians had thrown about as they looted, put everything where it had belonged, as nearly as they could guess,
     scrubbed and sanded away the stains, just as if the life of this house were going to go on.
    Two things they found in the litter had a special meaning for Martin Pauley. One was a sheet of paper upon which Debbie had
     tried to make a calendar a few weeks before. Something about it troubled him, and he couldn’t make out what it was. He remembered
     wishing they had a calendar, and very dimly he recalled Debbie bringing this effort to him. But his mind had been upon something
     else. He believed he had said, “That’s nice,” and, “I see,” without really seeing what the little girl was showinghim. Debbie’s calendar had not been hung up; he couldn’t remember seeing it again until now. And now he saw why. She had made
     a mistake, right up at the top, so the whole thing had come out wrong. He turned vaguely to Laurie Mathison, where she was
     washing her hands at the sink.
    “I …” he said. “It seems like...”
    She glanced at the penciled calendar. “I remember that. I was over here that day. But it’s all right. I explained to her.”
    “Explained what? What’s all right?”
    “She made a mistake up here, so it all—”
    “Yes, I see that, but—”
    “Well, when she saw she had spoiled it, she ran to you….” Her gray eyes looked straight into his. “You and I had
     a fight that day. Maybe it was that. But—you were always Debbie’s hero, Martie. She was—she’s still just a baby, you know.
     She kept saying—” Laurie compressed her lips.
    “She kept saying what?”
    “Martie, I made her see that—”
    He took Laurie by the arms hard. “Tell me.”
    “All right. I’ll tell you. She kept saying, ‘He