Helen was still watching the advancing party. She murmured, with a smile of amusement, as Sprudell laid the telegram down:
“Here, coming in the lead, is our unfailing news supply—Winfield Harrah. You’ve heard of him no doubt. Behind him, the big one—that huge chap with the black eyes, is the mysterious Samson from the West who whipped the ‘Spanish Bull-dog.’ ‘The Man from the Bitter Roots’ I think they call him.”
Subconsciously, Sprudell heard what she was saying and his eyes followed hers. The start he gave caused her to turn her head quickly. His face was more than colorless, it was chalky even to the lips.
“Burt!” He exclaimed involuntarily, “Bruce Burt!” He could have bitten his tongue out the instant after.
XVI
“Slim’s Sister”
Bruce Burt! the murderer! Of all things in the world that he should be “The Man from the Bitter Roots”—dining at the Strathmore—the guest of Winfield Harrah! Weren’t people punished for murder in the West? Sprudell had intimated that he would hang for it. Helen’s grey eyes were big with amazement and indignation while she watched him being seated.
She saw the widening of his eyes when he recognized Sprudell, the quick hardening of his features and the look that followed, which, if not exactly triumph, was certainly satisfaction. Involuntarily she glanced at Sprudell and the expression on his face held her eyes. It fascinated her. For the moment she forgot Bruce Burt in studying him.
She thought she had read his real nature, had seen his dominant characteristic in the blatant egotism that had shown itself so strongly in his elation. But this was different, so different that she had a queer feeling of sitting opposite an utter stranger. It was not dislike, resentment, fear; it was rather a sly but savage vindictiveness, a purposeful malice that would stop at nothing. In the unguarded moment Sprudell’s passion for revenge was stamped upon his face like a brand. Helen had thought of him contemptuously as a bounder, a conceited ignoramus—he was more than these things, he was a dangerous man.