There was a fiendish symbolism in their intent.... The man they called a usurper must die on the very tree that gave their home its significance, and no other instrument of vengeance would satisfy them. The old bitterness had begun generations ago when the renegade who "painted his face and went to the Indians" had sought to destroy it, and happiness with it. Now his descendant was renewing the warfare on the spot where it had begun, and the tree was again the centre of the drama.
Dorothy Thornton thought that her heart would burst with the terrific pressure of her despair and helplessness.
Then her knees weakened and she would have fallen had she not reeled back against the corner of the mantel, and a low, heart-broken moan came, long drawn, from her lips.
There was nothing to be done—yet every moment before death was a moment of life, and submission meant death. In the woman's eyes blazed an unappeasable hunger for battle, and as they met those of her husband they flashed the unspoken exhortation: "Don't submit ... die fighting!"
It was the old dogma of mountain ferocity, but Parish Thornton knew its futility and shook his head. Then he answered her silent incitement in words:
"Hit's too late, Dorothy.... I'd only git you kilt as well as me.... I reckon they hain't grudgin' you none, es things stands now."
But the mob leader laughed, and turning his face to the wife, he ruthlessly tore away even that vestige of reassurance.
"We hain't makin' no brash promises erbout ther woman, Thornton," he brutally announced. "I read in her eyes jest now thet she reeco'nized one of us—an' hit hain't safe ter know too much."
They were still working at the ropes on the prisoner's wrists and the knots were not yet secure. The man had gauged his situation and resigned himself to die like a slaughter-house animal, instead of a mountain lion—in order to save his wife. Now they denied him that.
Suddenly his face went black and his eyes became torrential with fury.