"Yes, you will," huskily declared Bill, putting his hat on the table. "You'll say it right here, to-night. Your stepfather's sick, I hear. If he was feelin' his best he wouldn't be more'n a feather in my way—not more'n that Chinaman of yours. I've got to have your word to-night, or, by cripes, that letter goes to White Lodge!"
The girl was alarmed. She was colorless as marble, but her eyes were defiant. Talpers advanced toward her threateningly, and she retreated toward the door which opened into the other room. Bill swung her aside and placed himself squarely in front of the door, his arms outspread.
"No hide and seek goes," he said. "You stay in this room till you give me the right answer."
The girl ran toward the door opening into the kitchen. Talpers ran after her, clumsily but swiftly. The girl saw that she was going to be overtaken before reaching the door, and dodged to one side. The trader missed his grasp for her, and pitched forward, the force of his fall shaking the cabin. He struck his head against a corner of the table, and lay unconscious, spread out in a broad helplessness that made the girl think once more of spilled ink.
The white-haired man stood in the doorway to the other room. He held a revolver, with which he covered Talpers, but the trader did not move. The white-haired man deftly removed Talpers's revolver from its holster and put it on the table. Then he searched the trader's pockets.
"I'm glad I didn't have to shoot this swine," he said to the girl. "Another second and it would have been necessary. The letter isn't here, but you can frighten him with these trinkets—his own revolver and this watch which evidently he took from the murdered man on the hill. You know what else of Edward Sargent's belongings were taken."
The girl nodded.
"He will recover soon," went on the gray-haired man. "You will be in no further danger. He will be glad to go when he sees what evidence you have against him."
The white-haired man had taken a watch from one of Talpers's pockets. He put the timepiece on the table beside the trader's revolver. Then the door to the adjoining room closed again, and the girl was alone with the trader waiting for him to recover consciousness.
Soon Bill Talpers sat up. His hand went to his head and came away covered with blood. The world was rocking, and the girl at the table looked like half a dozen shapes in one.