She leaped to her feet.
"He never was afraid, least of all of you. You are lying. You cannot say this to me. Take your food and go. I would not eat it. Go." She was very fine with her eyes blazing.
Go? On such a night? The snow wolves were mad, dancing a war-dance, thirsting for blood. The fire-spirits were good. He had brought her food, and she thrust him out into the wild night. He looked her over and laughed evilly. The big chief is patient; he knows how to wait. Then one day he gets crazy, mad, and then he reaches out and takes what he wants. He tried to put his hand on her. Quickly she eluded him and put the couch of the sick man between them. Yes, she could avoid, resist, but she could not escape.
She had laughed at him, scorned him again and again. Now he would possess her, break her, bend her to his will or kill her.
"Hush," she said, pointing to the sick man; "don't wake him."
Appah moved close to the couch and looked at McCloud. He had been sick a long time. There was nothing to be feared from him. Still he looked again. If there had been the slightest chance that McCloud could have interfered with his purposes he would have killed him there where he lay.
"No scared sick man," he muttered contemptuously.
She had directed his attention to McCloud for a purpose. In the short interval Appah had given to the dying man, she had backed swiftly against the chest of drawers, beneath the left-hand window. A short time before she had taken the letter and the little moccasins from this drawer, and had left it open. Now, keeping her eye on Appah, she had put her hand behind her and rummaged in the drawer until her hand felt the little automatic gun that Hal had given her. Appah glanced up and divined her purpose. Quick as a panther he leaped over the unconscious clergyman and threw himself upon the girl as she tried to bring the gun in play. Her scream awoke the dying man, and he raised himself on his elbow, though it was a perceptible interval before his mind grasped the reality of what was happening. There was a struggle which brought Appah and the girl down in front of the fire. It was a short struggle. Her frenzied strength was as nothing in his grasp. He gave her arm a twist and the gun fell from her hand. Then he stopped her breath until she was helpless, when he picked her up in his arms and bore her through the door leading to the kitchen.
McCloud tried to get up. He did in fact get to a sitting position on the low couch; then he realized for a terrible moment his helplessness. On the small stool beside him rested the cup containing brandy left there by Big Bill. He drank it quickly, drank it all. It gave him a fictitious strength, a momentary capacity. While the struggle was going on in the next room, he crawled to the spot where the little gun had fallen, picked it up, and by slow and painful stages dragged himself across the room to the open kitchen door. He could go no further. He sank down. He could not hold the little weapon without trembling. He rested his elbows on the floor, grasped it with both hands, steadied it long enough to fire. Then he collapsed and lay very still upon his face.
There was a sudden quiet in the next room, then the sound of a body falling heavily. After a few moments Wah-na-gi appeared in the kitchen door, wild-eyed, haggard. She leaned wearily against the jamb until her mind and some of her strength came back, then she saw the body of McCloud. With a cry she ran to him, turned him over, and looked into the beloved face.