“Good-morning, my dear; you look like an angel—you really do.”
She uttered a low cry and looked for a weapon, for there, just within the door and leaning against the post, stood Rafe Norris, with a provoking smile upon his face.
“You are looking for a weapon,” he said, quietly, “and I have no doubt would use it on me as readily as you did on Anatole. I have the truth of that story now.”
“Why are you here?” she gasped. “What do you seek?”
“Revenge!” he hissed. “My band has been scattered, beaten, trampled under foot by these thrice-accursed trappers. My men have been butchered in this very valley by your so-called father and Dave Farrell, and those who were spared suffered the ignominy of the lash at their hands. I myself have been disgraced by bonds.”
“Let me pass,” said Myrtle. “I will not stay to bandy words with you.”
“Listen to me, my girl,” cried Rafe Norris, sternly. “If you leave this house alive you leave it as my prisoner. I am determined to punish these two men, and I can think of no better way to do so than by taking you with me. I shall act fairly with you, and at the first station we reach you shall be my wife, for I cannot live without you.”
“Let me pass,” she repeated, trying to force her way by him, with the design of reaching her carbine, which lay on the bench outside. “I will not stay here to be insulted.”
“I am afraid you will have to stay until I give you leave to pass, my girl,” replied Norris, pushing her back. “Do you think I do not know that if you reached the carbine my life is not worth a moment’s purchase? I honor your spirit, but you meet a man whose will is stronger than your own.”
Myrtle sunk back on a stool and looked at him steadily. There was something in her dark eyes which did not bode well for him if she reached a weapon, and he laughed aloud.