Convinced of this she stood for some little time at the door, her ear pressed against it, listening for any sound that might tell her of the whereabouts of Yuma in the cabin. She heard nothing. Perhaps he had gone? But she listened a while longer, determined to be certain before loosening the fastenings of the door. Silence–a premonitory silence–filled the room beyond the door. She could hear nothing except her own rapid breathing. Presently she heard a horse whinny. Was Yuma at the horses? It seemed incredible that any man should visit the cabin purposely to attack her. Perhaps Yuma had only intended to frighten her; he had said that Dunlavey had told him to follow her, but she believed that Dunlavey, in spite of his reputation for lawlessness and trickery, was not so unmanly as to incite the half-breed to attack her. He may have told him to steal the horses–she could believe that of him!

But for a long time, in spite of the quieting influence of these thoughts, she kept her ear pressed against the door. Then, moved by a sudden impulse–an accession of courage inspired by the continued silence–she cautiously loosened the fastenings and swung the door slowly open.

Her revolver lay close and with a swift movement she reached for it. As her fingers grasped its butt she heard a slight sound and Yuma was upon her from behind, pinning her arms to her sides. She felt his breath on her neck, heard his laugh, exultant and derisive, mocking her. His right hand, gripping hers tightly, was slipping slowly down toward the hand that held the revolver. She struggled desperately, squirming and twisting in his grasp, silently matching her strength against his. Finding this hopeless and feeling his hand gradually slipping toward the revolver, she suddenly raised her hand toward her face, bringing Yuma’s hand, still on her arm, with it. Then she dropped her head to his arm near the wrist, and sank her teeth savagely into the flesh.

Yuma howled in anguish, loosening his hold momentarily. In an instant she had wrenched herself free and had bounded to the center of the room, placing the kitchen table between herself and her assailant.

But he was after her with a bound, his little eyes gleaming with a venomous expression, his face contorted with passion. She raised the revolver and fired. For a breathless instant she thought that she had hit him, for he sank almost to the floor. But she saw that it was only a trick for he was up again on the instant, a mocking smile on his face and closer than ever. She fired again, and when she saw him sink to the floor she pulled the trigger a second time. He had been very close to the table when she fired the last time and before she could press the trigger again he had lurched forward under it, raising it on his shoulders and sending it crashing down behind him as he confronted her, his evil face close to hers, his hands again gripping her arms.

She fought him silently, and together they reeled around the cabin. She bit him again, and then in an outburst of savage fury he brutally twisted the arm in which she still held the revolver, sending the weapon crashing to the floor. While twisting her arm he had been compelled to loosen his grasp of the other slightly, and she again wrenched herself free and darted toward the door leading to the porch. But he bounded forward, intercepting her, and with a last, despairing effort she raised both hands to his face and clawed furiously at his eyes.

She heard a savage curse from him, saw the lust of murder in his little, glittering eyes, felt his sinewy fingers at her throat. Then objects within the cabin swam in a dizzy, blurring circle before her. She heard a crash–seeming to come from a great distance; heard Yuma curse again. And then, borne resistlessly forward by the weight of his body, she tumbled to the floor in an inert heap.

CHAPTER XXII
PROOF OF GRATITUDE

Shortly after noon on the same day Hollis, finding work irksome, closed his desk with a bang, told Potter that he was going home, mounted his pony, and loped the animal out the Dry Bottom trail. He remembered hearing Norton tell one of the men that morning that he suspected that several of Ed Hazelton’s cattle were still in the vicinity of the basin near the Hazelton cabin, and he determined to ride around that way and try to turn them back toward the Circle Bar. It would be recreation for him after a hot morning in the office.