In great anger, anger which precedes some quick and desperate act, almost every person has some gesture peculiar to himself, and this was Ralston’s.
A less guilty man than Smith might have flinched at that moment. The half-grin on his face faded, and he waited for a torrent of accusations and oaths. But Ralston, in a voice so low that it barely reached him, a voice so ominous, so fraught with meaning, that the dullest could not have misunderstood, said:
“I’ll borrow your horse, Smith.”
Smith, like one hypnotized, heard himself saying:
“Sure! Take him.”
Ralston knew as well as though he had witnessed the act that Smith had hammered the frogs of Molly’s feet until they were bruised and sore as boils. Her lameness would not be permanent—she would recover in a week or two; but the abuse of, the cruelty to, the little mare he loved filled Ralston with a hatred for Smith as relentless and deep as Smith’s own.
“A man who could do a thing like that,” said Ralston through his set teeth, “is no common cur! He’s wolf—all wolf! He isn’t staying here for love, alone. There’s something else. And I swear before the God that made me, I’ll find out what it is, and land him, before I quit!”