She paused and drew a resolute breath and her words were hardly louder than a whisper.
"Thar hain't no way on y'arth I wouldn't fight ter save him—even ef I hed ter fight a Judas in Judas fashion. So I aimed ter keep ye hyar—an' I kep' ye."
"Ye've kep' me thus fur," he corrected her with his swarthy face as malevolent as had ever been that of his red-skinned ancestors. "But ye told ther truth awhile ago—an' ye told hit a mite too previous. Ther matter hain't ended yit."
"Yes, hit's es good es ended," she assured him with the death-like quiet of a final resolve. "I made up my mind sometime back thet ye hed ter die, Bas."
Slowly the right hand came out of her loosened blouse and the firelight flashed on the blade of the dirk so tightly held that the woman's knuckles stood out white.
"I'm goin' ter kill ye now, Bas," she said.
For a few long moments they stood without other words, the woman holding the dirk close to her side, and neither of them noted that for the past ten minutes the sound of the axe had been silent off there in the woods.
Then abruptly the door from the kitchen opened and Sim Squires stood awkwardly on the threshold, with a face of wooden and vapid stupidity. Apparently he had noted nothing unusual, yet he had looked through the window before entering the house, and back of his unobservant seeming lay the purpose of averting bloodshed.
"I war jest lookin' fer ye, Bas," he said with the artlessness of perfect art. "I hollered but ye didn't answer. I wisht ye'd come out an holp me manpower a chunk up on ther choppin' block. I kain't heft hit by myself."
Bas scowled at the man whom he was supposed to dislike, but he followed him readily enough out of the room, and when he had lifted the log, he left the place without returning to the house.