"You brute!" she cried, with the courage of the cornered thing, the courage of the prisoner bound to the stake for torture. "You brute!"
She could hear him chuckle throatily. "You don't know me—I'm Big Aleck, general of the Soviet brothers in this county." He juggled phrases he never had understood.
"You ought to hang!" she panted. "You will hang, some day."
[Illustration: "You ought to hang!" said she.]
"You better look a little out, gal, I tell you that. You come along out to the camp, and I'll see how you like that!"
She felt his iron grasp fall upon her wrist. He dragged her across the floor as though she weighed nothing. She had been wholly helpless, even if in possession of all her faculties and all her senses. He flung her from him upon the grass, laughing as she rose and tried to run, bringing up in the willows, which she could not see. She could hear the flames crackling at the hay ricks on beyond. By this time the sounds from the burning barn mercifully had ceased, but she heard him now at some further work. He was trying to light the battered edge of the door with a match, but it would not burn.
"Where's the oil, gal?" he demanded.
"We've got none," said she, guessing his purpose of firing the house now.