"Oh!" she said, startled, when she saw Antrim's face in the glare of light from within; "I thought you were one of the Circle L men!" She shrank back a little when Antrim grinned evilly at her, catching her breath with a gasp.
"What do you want?" she demanded.
Antrim crossed the threshold and stood inside, where the light was full upon his face. Repelled—almost terrorized by what she saw in his eyes, Mrs. Lawler attempted to retreat from him; but in an instant he had seized her arms, roughly and brutally crushing them against her sides, while he shoved her back against the open door; holding her in that position and grinning hideously at her helplessness.
"You know me?" he sneered, his face close to hers. "I'm Antrim!" He laughed when she caught her breath; when he noted that she recognized the name.
"I reckoned you'd know me, when I told you," he said. "Luke Lawler knowed me—an' your son knows me! I've never had no love for the Lawler breed, an' I ain't changed any. But there's a lot of things that I'm squarin' up for!
"This is my night; I've been waitin' for it!" he gloated. "I'm cleanin' up on the Lawlers! I'm wipin' Kane Lawler out—cattle, buildings—an' him too, mebbe. It ain't goin' to be a thing you ought to see. You're gettin' away from here—I don't give a damn where. An' you're goin' now!"
Awed by his manner and by the terrible threat in his voice, Mrs. Lawler did not resist the physical strength of the outlaw. Though Antrim's fingers were gripping her arms until the pain made her long to cry out in agony, she made no sound. Nor—now that she realized what portended—did her gaze waver as it met Antrim's. Her eyes glowed with contempt as they looked into his—with a proud scorn that brought a crimson flush into Antrim's cheeks. It had been that spirit that had always enraged Antrim—that had always made him realize his inferiority to her husband, and to the steady-eyed son who had shamed him publicly at Willets. It was a thing that physical violence could not conquer; it revealed a quiet courage that had always disconcerted him.
"Hell!" he sneered; "you can't come any of that high an' mighty stuff on me!"
He twisted her until she faced the door, and then shoved her before him across the porch and down upon the level on the ranchhouse yard, toward the stable and the corral.
She did not resist, knowing that physical resistance would be futile.