"I—I've got a notion ter kill ye!" she cried, brokenly. "Ef Samson was hyar, ye wouldn't dare—" What else she might have said was shut off in stormy, breathless gasps of humiliation and anger.
"Well," replied Tamarack, with drawling confidence, "ef Samson was hyar, I'd show him, too—damn him! But Samson hain't hyar. He won't never be hyar no more." His voice became deeply scornful, as he added: "He's done cut an' run. He's down thar below, consortin' with furriners, an' he hain't thinkin' nothin' 'bout you. You hain't good enough fer Samson, Sally. I tells ye he's done left ye fer all time."
Sally had backed away from the man, until she stood trembling near the hearth. As he spoke, Tamarack was slowly and step by step following her up. In his eyes glittered the same light that one sees in those of a cat which is watching a mouse already caught and crippled.
She half-reeled, and stood leaning against the rough stones of the fireplace. Her head was bowed, and her bosom heaving with emotion. She felt her knees weakening under her, and feared they would no longer support her. But, as her cousin ended, with a laugh, she turned her back to the wall, and stood with her downstretched hands groping against the logs. Then, she saw the evil glint in Tamarack's blood-shot eyes. He took one slow step forward, and held out his arms.
"Will ye come ter me?" he commanded, "or shall I come an' git ye?" The girl's fingers at that instant fell against something cooling and metallic. It was Samson's rifle.
With a sudden cry of restored confidence and a dangerous up-leaping of light in her eyes, she seized and cocked it.
CHAPTER XVI
The girl stepped forward, and held the weapon finger on trigger, close to her cousin's chest.
"Ye lies, Tam'rack," she said, in a very low and steady voice—a voice that could not be mistaken, a voice relentlessly resolute and purposeful.
"Ye lies like ye always lies. Yore heart's black an' dirty. Ye're a murderer an' a coward. Samson's a-comin' back ter me…. I'm a-goin' ter be Samson's wife." The tensity of her earnestness might have told a subtler psychologist than Tamarack that she was endeavoring to convince herself. "He hain't never run away. He's hyar in this room right now." The mountaineer started, and cast an apprehensive glance about him. The girl laughed, with a deeply bitter note, then she went on: