"And now that you're half scared to death, you'd like to make a man
believe that you are not afraid of the devil himself!"
She flashed a burning look at him; chokingly she cried:
"At least, thank God, I am not afraid of you, Bruce Standing!... Big
brute and bully and ... Yes!... Coward!"
And yet, as never before in her life, her heart was beating wildly,
leaping against her side like an imprisoned thing struggling to break
through the walls which shut it in. His fingers were still locked about
her wrist; his grip tightened; he drew her closer in order to look
the more clearly into her eyes. Then his slow, mocking laughter smote
across her nerves like a rude hand brushing across harp-strings, making
clashing discords.
"You begin well!" he jeered at her. "We are going to see how you end."
"Let me go!" She jerked back; she twisted and dragged at her wrist,
trying wildly to break free. His mockery stung her into desperation.
With her one free hand she struck him across the face.
She struck hard, with all her might, with trebled strength through her
fury. And, maddening her, he gave no sign that she had hurt him. Still
jeering at her, all that he did was drop his rifle, so that with his
other hand he could take captive the hand which had struck him. And
then it was so easy a thing for him to take both her wrists into the
grip of his one, right hand; held thus, no matter how she fought, hers
was the sensation of utter powerlessness which is a child's when an
elder person, teasing, catches its two hands in one and lets it cry and
kick.... Suddenly she grew quiet....
"Well?" she demanded, panting, forcing her eyes to a steady meeting
with his. "What do you intend to do with me, now you've got me? There
doesn't appear to be any one near to keep you from woman-beating!"
"What am I going to do with you? If I knew, I'd tell you! When I do
know, I'll show you.... If I could catch you by the hair and drag you
through hell after me.... I pay all of my debts, girl! I have followed
you; I have found you; I have taken you, prying you loose from your
running mate.... You thought it fun to laugh at me once, did you?
Before I have done with you, you would give your soul for the power and
the will to laugh...."
"It is because I laughed at you?" she asked wonderingly.
"For what else?" he said sternly.
"And not because of a pistol shot?"
"Less for that than for the other. I allow it any man's privilege to
shoot at me if he doesn't like me; but no man's nor woman's privilege
to laugh."
"How do you know it was I who shot you?... Did you see?"
"Had I seen, I should not have held it against you; for that would have
meant that you struck in the open, any man's or woman's right! But to
shoot a man in the back.... Here; help me!"
She was perplexed to know what he meant. He dragged her after him, a
dozen paces from the fire; still holding her two hands caught in his
one, he sat down upon a big stone. Suddenly it struck her that all this
time, since he had dropped his rifle, his left arm had been hanging
limply at his side.
"When I let go of you," he said, very stern, "if you try to run for it
I'll catch you and drag you back. And I'm in no mood for gentleness!"
At that he let her go. He put his right hand to his shirt collar and
began unbuttoning it.
"My wound has broken open," he said, with a grunt of disgust. "That
Baby Devil of yours didn't care where he hit a man!... Here; there's a
bandage that has slipped. And I'm losing blood again. See what you can
do."
"Why should I?" she demanded coolly. "What is it to me whether or not
you bleed to death?"
Fury filled his eyes and he shouted at her:
"You, by God, drilled the cowardly hole; and you doctor it!"
"And if I won't?"
"Then, as I live, I'll make you! One way or another, girl, I'll make
you. That's Bruce Standing's word for you. Now hurry!"
She cast a quick glance over her shoulder; she was on the verge
of breaking into wild, headlong flight.... But certain knowledge
restrained her; she knew that he would overtake her, that he would drag
her back and ... that he was in no mood for gentleness. Therefore,
while her whole soul rebelled, she came closer, as he commanded.
... She had never dreamed that any man born could have a chest like
that; nor such shoulders, massive and yet beautiful as the pure-lined
expression of power; nor such skin, soft and smooth and white as a
girl's, the outward sign of another beauty, that of clean health.
Clean, hard, triumphant physical manhood.... It struck her at the time,
so that she marvelled at herself and wondered dully if she were taking
leave of her sober senses, that there was truer, finer beauty in the
body of such a man than in any girl's; that here was a true artist's
true triumph.... Physically he was splendid, superb.... In his own
image did God make man....
With his right hand he was working with the bandage where it was taped
about the bulge of his left breast; on the white cloth were fresh gouts
of blood. Impatiently he tore at his shirt collar; on the bandage,
where it passed about his left shoulder-blade, were red stains.
"Wait a minute," he commanded. "In my pocket I've got some sort of
salve; some idiotic mess that Billy Winch cooked up; the Lord knows
what it is or what he made it of; iodine and soap and flaxseed and
cobwebs, most likely! But it will chink up the leak ... and it feels
good and hasn't poisoned me so far! Here, smear it on."
... She felt as though she were dreaming all this! That wild,
uncontrollable laughter of hers which swept over her at times of taut
nerves and absurd situations, threatened to master her. She fought it
down. She touched his back. She, Lynette, administering to Timber-Wolf
... it would be better for her, far better for her, if his wound were
poisoned and he died!... Yet, as she touched his back, it was with
wondrously gentle fingers. There was a wound there; the ugly wound made
by a bullet, half healed, broken open anew under heavy blows. A little
shiver, a strange, new sort of shiver, ran through her; here she was
down to elementals, she, who with just cause and leaping instinct hated
this man, ministering to him....
"Smear the stuff on, I tell you. Over the wound. Enough of it to shut
out any infernal infection.... What in the devil's name is holding you?
Waiting for the sun to go down and come up again?"
She bit her lips; he looked suddenly into her face, and could have
no clew to her thought or emotion; he could not guess whether she bit
her lip to keep from laughing or crying!... She spread over the gaping
wound a thin film of Billy Winch's pungent salve. As she touched the
wound she looked for a muscular contraction, for the flinching from
pain. He did not move; there was not so much as the involuntary quiver
of a muscle. She wondered if the man felt as other human beings did?
... "Now a fresh piece of tape. That idiot Winch packed me off with my
pockets loaded like a drug-store shelf! That's all for this time; we'll
make a new dressing and bathe the wound in the morning. Now.... Here!
Let me look at you!"
He crimsoned her face with that way of his. She whipped back from him
and her eyes brightened with defiance. He sat looking at her a long
time, while with slow fingers he buttoned his collar; his face showed
not so much as a flicker of expression; his eyes were keen, but gave no
clew to his thought.
The sun was already down beyond the ridge; shadows here in the little
hollow had gathered swiftly; dark was on the way. He rose and went to
the fire, for an instant turning his back upon her as he piled on the
dead-wood which Deveril had gathered. But over his shoulder he called
to her coolly:
"I've warned you not to try to run for it!"
And from his tone she knew that he had easily guessed her thought; for
the impulse to attempt flight had been strong upon her the moment that
he turned. She remained where she stood; if only it were pitch-dark, if
only he went on a few paces farther away from her, if only the fringe
of trees offering refuge were a few paces nearer.... She was quick to
see the folly of making a premature dash; the wisdom in allowing him to
think that she could be looked to for obedience! Thus, later, when her
chance came and his watchfulness nodded, she'd be up and away like a
shot....
The fire caught the fresh fuel and crackled and blazed, sparks
showering about her where she stood. Now Standing, his face looking
ruddy in the glow, turned toward her, saying curtly:
"Come here. I want a good look at you ... in the full light."
"Brute and bully!" she cried, struggling with herself for an outward
semblance of calm. "You hold the high card. But the game isn't played
out between you and me yet, Bruce Standing." While speaking she came
closer, so that she too stood in the red fire glow. She held her head
up; she returned his unswerving gaze unswervingly.
"You've got the vocabulary of a gambler's daughter," he said. "That's
what you are, eh? A gambler's girl and, in your own penny-ante way, a
gambler yourself!"
"I am the daughter of Dick Brooke!" she told him proudly. "Dick Brooke
was a man and a miner and after that, if you like, a gambler."
"Dick Brooke? Dick Brooke's daughter? Why, then ... the daughter also
of a dancing-girl!"
Her face went white with anger.
"Oh ... I hate you! Oh, I hate you! You ... you are contemptible!"
"Aha! So that hurts!" he jeered at her.
"It is a cruel lie. Olymphe Labelle was not a dancing-girl.... She was
an artist! And a woman among ten thousand...."
The firelight cast its warm glow over her face. She lifted her chin
defiantly. Her hair fell in loose, rippling strands of bronze and over
her shoulders. She was very beautiful thus; no woman on whom Bruce
Standing had ever looked was half so beautiful. And haughty, like a
princess ... like a high-bred lady made captive, yet scorning to show
sign of fear....
"You are Lynette Brooke," he muttered; "you are the girl who laughed at
me, shaming me; you are the girl who shot me in the back! Those are the
things to remember. A treacherous cat of a woman; a gun woman! One to
go sneaking around with a revolver at hand to shoot a man in the back
with...."
"Any woman, dealing with men like you, has need of a gun!"
"I'll tell you this," he muttered. "I'm a fair judge of men, if not of
women. And when it's a case of a man ... why just show me a man who
carries a pocket-gun and I'll show you a cheap ragamuffin, a tin horn,
or an overgrown kid ... or a dirty coward. A man's weapon is a rifle
carried in the open; give me a good pair of boots and I'll stamp the
white livers out of a whole crowd of your little gunmen.... As for
women, gun-toting women...." He broke off with a heavy shrug. "Now,
girl, I'm hungry. The smell of your coffee has been in my nostrils a
long time. See what you can give me to eat."
"So I am to wait on you ... to be your servant...."
"To be my slave!" he shouted at her. "Proud, are you? So much the
better. I swore to make you pay, and you begin paying now. Yes, as my
slave as long as I like!"
"And you call yourself a man!"
"I call myself the best man that ever came into this wilderness
country," he told her impudently. "If you are in doubt, bring on any
other man of your choice and ask him, with your pretty smiles, if he
cares to stand up against me! Yes, a man who goes rough-shod over
everything and anything and anybody who stands in his way...."
"Boaster!" she named him scornfully.
He laughed loudly at that.
"I am no boaster and in your heart you know it!... There's another
damn-fool convention for you, that business of great modesty! A man who
is sure of himself doesn't have to walk easy and talk easy, but can
tell other men what he is, and then, by glory, show 'em!"
Still she was scornful of him ... though she could not keep out of her
thought that picture which he had made when, axe in hand, he had laid
an armed jailer in the dust, and single-handed had made a jail delivery
which hundreds of other men wanted to make and held back from ...
through lack of that unrestricted confidence which was Bruce Standing's.
He was staring at her.
"You, too ... for a woman ... have courage," he muttered. And then,
with a sudden arm flung out: "I'm hungry, I tell you."
"I'd rather die...."
"It's easy to die ... for any one who is not a coward. And I just told
you that you had courage." He came suddenly close to her. "But there
are other things that are not so easy! What if I put my two arms about
you? If I hold you tight ... and set my lips to yours ... and...."
"You beast...."
"But my dinner?" he jeered at her.
She went hot and cold; she cast a quick glance toward the forest land
where the night was thickening; she cast another glance at his rifle
where it lay, a few feet from the fire. Then, her lower lip caught
between her teeth, she went to the tin can in which she and Babe
Deveril had made coffee.
"A funny thing," said Bruce Standing, watching her; "you skipped out,
hot-foot, from Big Pine, thinking you had killed me! And your little
friend, meaning Baby Devil, skipped along, thinking he had done Jim
Taggart in! And, after all, nobody much hurt!... Glad to hear that
Taggart did not die?"
"I knew it already," she said, just to cheat him of any satisfaction in
telling her.
"Mexicali Joe skipped this way, too," he went on swiftly, so swiftly
that he succeeded in tricking her into saying:
"I knew that, too!"
Then he laughed at her, informing her:
"Now there remains little for you to tell me. You knew Taggart was
still on his feet and you knew Joe was travelling this way, and you've
come up from the general direction of Joe's dugout! Which tells me one
thing: where you and Baby Devil got the coffee and this tinned stuff.
Now let's hear details!"
"Oh ... I hate you!"
"You've told me that before. And...." He burst into booming laughter.
And then, still laughter-choked, he cried: "Like a good old-time
two-handled sword is the man Bruce Standing! And yet his wit, like a
Spanish dagger, is good match for a girl's!"
She made no reply, though her blood tingled, and though her hand, with
a will of its own, must be held back from striking him across the face
again. She brought him his coffee and thereafter food which he called
for from among the tins.
"What do you think has happened to your gentleman friend?" he mocked
her. And when she refused to reply, he told her: "He's gone on ...
where? After Taggart? To get a rifle and come back? Planning to hide
behind a tree and pop me off while I'm not looking? That would make a
hit with you, wouldn't it? Like your own best game of shooting a man in
the back! Or has he forgotten a pair of bright eyes and warm arms and
red lips? And is he content to trail Mexicali, spying on him, trying to
get in on the new gold diggings? Which, girl?"
"He hates you!... with cause. And he is no coward; he is as good a man,
if less brute, as you, Bruce Standing!..."
When he spoke finally it was to say:
"We're going to be short on provisions for a day or so, girl. Hungry?"
Here was her first, altogether too vague clew to his intentions.
Quickly she asked:
"Where are we going?"
"I to keep an engagement; you to accompany me."
He supposed that he had told her nothing. And yet she, quick-witted,
having never let slip from her mind a certain suspicion when Mexicali
Joe had too readily succumbed to Taggart, cried out:
"To a meeting with Mexicali Joe!"
"What makes you think that?" he asked sharply.
She pretended to laugh at him. He ate in silence; drank his coffee;
thereafter, stuffing a pipe full of crude black tobacco, smoked
thoughtfully. All the while the fire burned lower and the darkness,
ringing them around, drew closer in. She had been on the alert, while
looking to be hopelessly bowed where she sat. Suddenly he was at her
side, his grip like a steel bracelet about her wrist.
"About ready to jump and run for it?" he taunted her. "Not to-night, my
girl; and not to-morrow night nor yet for many a day to come. I've got
my own plans for you."
"Are you going to take me back to Big Pine? To hand me over to the law,
with a charge of attempted murder against me?"
"I am going to take you with me on into the wilderness. Into a country
which is absolutely the kingdom of Bruce Standing. Haven't I told you
that I have my own plans for you? I can hand you over to the cheap
degradation of a trial and conviction and jail sentence whenever I am
ready for it...."
"You can't keep me from killing myself...."
"But I can! I am master here, understand? And you.... By heaven, you
are nothing but my slave so long as I tolerate you!... Look here, what
I brought for you!... For I knew I'd find you!"
He began unwinding from his big body a thin steel chain, a chain which
he had brought with him from his ranch headquarters, where it had
served as leash for a wolf-hound. With a quick movement he snapped the
end of it about her waist; there was a steel padlock scarcely bigger
than a silver half-dollar; she heard the click as he locked it. Then he
stood back from her, the other end of the slight chain in his hand ...
and laughed at her!
"The sign of your servitude!... Proud? One way to make you pay! Will
you laugh again, girl? Will you, do you think, ever have the second
chance to shoot me in the back?... Come; we must be on our way before
daylight."
He caught up his rifle; that, together with the end of her chain, he
held in his hand. He began putting out the fire, stamping on the living
coals. Making her follow him, he went to the creek several times for
water, which he carried in his big hat, which held so much more than
any tin can in camp. When the fire was out, he turned with her toward
the bowery shelter which Babe Deveril, working and singing, had made
for her. With his shuffling boots he kicked the culled branches into
two heaps. He wrapped the end of her chain about his wrist; she heard
the snap as he fastened it. He thrust his rifle under him.
"I am going to sleep," he told her bluntly and cast himself down. "You
with your payment just begun, may lie awake all night ... wondering...."
... But it was a long, long while, a weary time of darkness sprinkled
with stars before he went to sleep. She sat up on her couch of boughs,
the chain about her waist galling her....