They were taking the lesson to heart.

And indeed old Bill Campbell himself seemed to be slowly admitting that he was beaten.
The illusion of absolute self-sufficiency, which he had built up through the years for the sake of imposing upon his sons and Bull Hunter, was now destroyed.

At a single stroke he had been exposed as an old man, already beaten in battle by a foeman and now requiring as much care as a sick woman.

The shame of it burned in him; but the comfort of the smoothed bunk and the filled pipe between his teeth was a blessing.

He found to his own surprise that he was not hating Bull with a tithe of his usual vigor.