With his last taunts a dull rush of red rage overspread Lem's countenance, as with a quick, decisive movement he jerked his rifle to his shoulder and fell upon one knee. A groan of despair escaped McGill's bloodless lips now, and the rattlesnake instantly made that fatal loop at the narrow of its neck. Evidently Sap preferred a bullet in the head to a stab in the throat from the yellow monster that was flashing its pronged tongue in his face.
"Now I'll show Belle-Ann whut ugly brains yo'-all got," muttered Lem, sighting along the glistening gun barrel.
A piercing shriek of horror rent the air. Belle-Ann was not a hundred feet away. A vivid terror stood in her eyes. She struggled for breath to thwart the tragedy that filled that instant.
"For God's sake—oh!—for my sake—don't shoot—Lem—Lem—Lem!" she screamed out, terrified, in begging, forbidding, distraught utterances, and collapsed in the path.
But Lem, unheeding, quickly pressed the trigger. There was a pungent crack. The rifle spat out a long, slender tongue of flame. A ragged wisp of blue-white smoke spread out, separated and floated languidly upward. There was an acrid odor of burnt powder in the air. Across the tenseness of that long, awful moment the soft trill of a catbird grated like the harsh blasphemy of a parrot. The gentle barking of a squirrel impinged like a nerve-shattering noise.
Belle-Ann was on her knees in the trail—her face averted and her hands over her eyes to hide them from what lay before her. Her curls were shaking and trembling with the chill that swept over her body. She, Belle-Ann Benson, who could, in days gone by, have watched with interest and pleasure the killing of an enemy, and smile. But now the subtle crack of that gun-shot rived into her senses like a withering scourge. Had the bullet pierced her own vitals she could not have suffered thus. All through the after years of her life the reverberation of that sharp, little gun-noise hung about her ears, and she could never think of this scene without a shudder.
She heard a loud, strained laugh, carrying a volume of contempt and scorn. She peeped through her fingers fearfully. McGill was standing upright, wiping his wet, pallid face with his shaking, naked hand. Belle-Ann's hands came away from her eyes as she regained her feet, dumfounded, and stared as if a ghost confronted her. She doubted her senses.
"Belle-Ann," shouted Lem, "cum an' take a look at th' live coward!"
With a sudden influx of gladness she ran forward, a thankful heart beating color back into her dimpled face. She looked at Lem, dazed, nonplussed. Then she gazed at McGill and at a rattlesnake, whose bloody head hung to its neck by a slender ligature of skin as it lashed the rocks with its dying tail. Not once did McGill look in Belle-Ann's direction; nor indeed did he meet Lem's truculent gaze. He stood abject, with downcast eyes, and the dull apathy of a sick ox. On his depraved features was a lettering of criminal sullenness; on his twitching lips the curse of cowardice. Beneath this avenging stroke of Fate his big, sinister hulk lopped down, and he stood stupidly licking his cracked lips like a spiritless dog.
Belle-Ann still stood awed, nearby, trying to solve this strange phenomenon. McGill's guilty heart plainly dreaded this fair girl's presence. He did not look up, nor did he essay to utter a word of defense. His shallow eyes only roved at his feet. He presented the picture of the crestfallen criminal cornered on the premises of his last losing stand.