"I'm coming for my snowshoes, Virginia," he told her. "Then I'm going to go away." He tried to draw his battered, bloody lips into a smile.
"Come in and get them," she replied. Her voice was low and lifeless. Harold stepped through the door. And then she uttered a curious cry.
"Now!" she called sharply. There was no time for Harold to dart back, even to be alarmed. A mighty force descended upon his body.
Even in that first instant Harold knew only too well what had occurred. Instead of lying in wait himself he had been lured into ambush. Bill had re-entered the window and had stood waiting in the shadow, just beside the open door. Virginia had given him the signal when to leap down.
He leaped with crushing force,—as the grizzly leaps, or the cougar pounces from a tree. There was nothing of human limitations about that attack. Harold tried to struggle, but his attempt was futile as that of a sparrow in the jaws of the little ermine. Only too well he knew the strength of these pitiless arms that clasped him now. He had learned it the night before, and his lust for vengeance gave way to ghastly and blood-curdling terror. What would these two avengers do to him; what justice would they wreak on him, now that they had him in their power? The resistless shoulders hurled him to the floor. Virginia left her bed and came creeping to be of such aid as was needed.
She wholly disregarded her own injury. Her own countrymen, in wars agone, had fought all day with wounds much worse. She crept with her pistol ready in her hands.
Bill's strong fingers were at Harold's throat by now; the man's resistance was swiftly crushed out of him. With his knee Bill held down one of Harold's arms; with his free arm he struck blow after blow into his face. Then as unconsciousness descended upon him, Harold felt his wrists being drawn back and tied.
He struggled for consciousness. Opening his eyes, he saw their sardonic faces. The worst terror of his life descended upon him.
"My god, what are you going to do to me?" he asked.
"Why, Harold, you are going to be our little truck horse," Virginia replied gayly, as she handed Bill more thongs. "You are going to pull the sled and show the way down into Bradleyburg."