"I have shown it. Take the prop of your backing from behind this labor trouble, and let Mr. Raymer settle with his men on a basis of good-will and fair dealing."
"Is that all?"
"No. You must cancel this pine-land deal. You have broken bread with Mr. Galbraith as a friend, and I'm not going to let you be worse than an Arab."
Grierson's shaggy brows met in a reflective frown, and when he spoke the bestial temper was rising again.
"When this is all over, and you've gone to live with Raymer, I'll kill him," he said, with an out-thrust of the hard jaw; adding: "You know me, Madge."
"I thought I did," was the swift retort. "But it was a mistake. And as for taking it out on Mr. Raymer, you'd better wait until I go 'to live with him,' as you put it. Besides, this isn't Yellow Dog Gulch. They hang people here."
"You little she-devil! If you push me into this thing, you'd better get Raymer, or somebody, to take you in. You'll be out in the street!"
"I have thought of that, too," she said, coolly; "about quitting you. I'm sick of it all—the getting and the spending and the crookedness. I'd put the money—yours and mine—in a pile and set fire to it, if some decent man would give me a calico dress and a chance to cook for two."
"Raymer, for instance?" the father cut in, in heavy mockery.
"Mr. Raymer has asked me to marry him, if you care to know," she struck back.