"Pray God, do you want to mob me, Ben Nicholson?" she sobbed, putting her head out fearfully.
"We want the scab that sneaked into the side door, Mrs. Mary!" roared Ben Nicholson. "Fire him out here."
"Sure there's no one here you want."
"We know all about that," cried Rucker breaking in. "We want the scab." He pushed her back and crowded into the door after her.
The room was dark, but the fright was too great for Mrs. Mullenix, and she cried to McTerza to leave her house for the love of God. Some one tore down the curtains; the glow of the burning yards lit the room, and out of the gloom, behind the lunch counter, almost at her elbow—a desperate sight, they told me—panting, blood-stained, and torn, rose McTerza. His fingers closed over the grip of the bread-knife on the shelf beside him.
"Who wants me?" he cried, leaning over his breastwork.
"Leave my house! For the love of God, leave it!" screamed Mrs. Mullenix, wringing her hands. The scab, knife in hand, leaped across the counter. Nicholson and Rucker bumped into each other at the suddenness of it, but before McTerza could spring again there was a cry behind.
"He sha'n't leave this house!" And Kate Mullenix, her face ablaze, strode forward. "He sha'n't leave this house!" she cried again, turning on her mother. "Leave this house, after he's just pulled your boy from under their cowardly clubs! Leave it for who? He sha'n't go out. Burn it over our heads!" she cried passionately, wheeling on the rioters. "When he goes we'll go with him. It's you that want him, Curtis Rucker, is it? Come, get him, you coward! There he stands. Take him!"
Her voice rang like a fire-bell. Rucker, burnt by her words, would have thrown himself on McTerza, but Nicholson held him back. There never would have been but one issue if they had met then.
"Come away!" called the older man hoarsely. "It's not women we're after. She's an engineer's wife, Curt; this is her shanty. Come away, I say," and saying, he pushed Rucker and their coyote following out of the door ahead of him. Mrs. Mullenix and Kate sprang forward to lock the door. As they ran back, McTerza, spent with blood, dropped between them. So far as I can learn that is where the courtship began, right then and there—and as McTerza says, all along of Sinkers, for Sinkers was always Kate's favorite brother, as he is now McTerza's.