He consequently backed towards the door for an emergency.
But he was again at fault.

That unaffected stoical fortitude in acute suffering, which was the one remaining pride and glory of Low's race, was yet to be revealed to Wynn's civilized eyes.
The young man took the letter, and read it without changing a muscle, folded the ring in it, and dropped it into his haversack.

Then he picked up his blanket, threw it over his shoulder, took his trusty rifle in his hand, and turned toward Wynn as if coldly surprised that he was still standing there.
"Are you--are you--going ?" stammered Wynn.
"Are you _not_ ?" replied Low dryly, leaning on his rifle for a moment as if waiting for Wynn to precede him.

The preacher looked at him a moment, mumbled something, and then shambled feebly and ineffectively down the staircase before Low, with a painful suggestion to the ordinary observer of being occasionally urged thereto by the moccasin of the young man behind him.
On reaching the lower hall, however, he endeavored to create a diversion in his favor by dashing into the barroom and clapping the occupants on the back with indiscriminate playfulness.

But here again he seemed to be disappointed.