“Get out!” she ordered briefly. “I warn you for the last time not to come here again!”
It took him several seconds to realize that he had been duped. Then, with an oath, he sprang. He gripped her fiercely by the shoulders.
“You little cat,” he snarled. “I’ll learn you to fool with a he-man!”
The girl struggled fiercely in his grasp and struck again and again at the vicious face before her. She was young and strong; but the fearful agony of her wounded shoulder rapidly weakened her. The miner, though thin, was sinewy, and not without a sort of wiry power. Gradually he pinned both her arms behind her and held them there. He forced her writhing shoulders against him, and began to press kiss after kiss upon the white face.
Then suddenly she was released! He seemed to fly from before her face and to go tumbling over and over into the bushes!
Sobbing weakly, the girl sank to the ground.
When she could open her eyes, she saw Rand Cameron standing over the fallen miner.
“You yellow hound!” he was muttering with murderous intensity. “I’m going to send you to join the rest of your crew in hell!”
He extracted both of the other’s pistols from their holsters. It is highly probable that, in the violence of his rage, he would have slain the brute without mercy, had not the girl, with a cry, thrust herself between.
“Don’t, Rand!” she begged wildly. “Don’t, for God’s sake!”