A MCIVOR
There is a look in the eyes of eagles which sometimes is found in men—a bold, resolute look, changing swiftly to defiance and a hatred that nothing can quench. It is the sign of the fighting man—not the sly, vicious killer, but the man who will fight till he dies. Hall McIvor wore it blazing when he reached for his rifle and strode over to join the Bassetts.
"Played 'possum, eh?" muttered Winchester, who had lost his old smile.
"Well, I wish we could bring in Sharps."
"No use," answered Hall, "they're just waiting to get you. Shall I kill the rest of those hogs."
"Yes, kill the last one of them!" burst out Winchester in a frenzy. "My God, them Scarboroughs ain't human!"
"No, they're not," replied Hall, and glanced up at the hill before he crossed the room to attend to the hogs. He surveyed them with loathing, with a shudder of horror at the fate he had so narrowly missed; and then, very carefully, he shot them one by one as they gathered about the body of Sharps. They followed their own nature, even as the men upon the hill, and so he shot them down; and so he would shoot—and without any more remorse—the men who had ambushed Sharps. Their bullets had gone wild or they would have shot him too and left him a carcass for the hogs; and, but for the devotion of the woman that he loved, he would be at their mercy still.
At the first volley of shots he had known that he was caught, and that to run was to invite certain death; and so he had dropped down, rolling swiftly out of sight while the smoke was still in their eyes. It was a trick that he had learned from the same careful father who had reared him with but one object in life—to make him a killer of men, a terror to the Randolph clan. He it was who had taught him to shoot left-handed with the rifle, since then he would present his right side to the enemy and avoid a fatal bullet through the heart. But in the battle a bullet had found his guarded heart, he had been left on the field for dead; and now, a second time, he had been spared from death in order to live for revenge.
They still thought he was dead, those whooping cravens on the hillside who had seen him dragged into the house; but if there was a God above to look down and judge men's hearts he swore to make them pay. Not while he could lift a hand should they shoot down white-haired men and make sport of weeping women; they had invited the wrath of Almighty God and he would be His sure sword. His hand, which they thought dead, should rise and smite them; he would kill them one by one——He paused, for Allifair had laid her hand on his and was gazing deep down into his eyes.
"Remember," she said, "you are mine now—I saved you. And we must leave this horrible place."