“I make a last appeal to your decency and manhood––if you have either,” she said, sitting motionless.
“Rot,” he answered. Half dragging her, half lifting her, he removed her from the machine. Slipping a hand within her arm he led her inside the log house.
“Sit there,” he ordered.
Janet dropped upon the seat, a rude plank bench against the wall farthest from the door. Indeed, fatigue and the numbness of her limbs rendered her incapable of standing.
“When I’ve touched off this fire and set out some grub, then I’ll untie your hands,” he continued. “A snug little cabin, eh? Just the place for us, what? See all the stuff I’ve brought up here to make you warm and 155 happy and comfortable. Regular nest. Lot of work on my part, I want to say.”
He touched a match to the wood already laid in the fireplace, flung off his rain coat and stood to warm his hands at the blaze. Lighting a cigarette, he began placing from a box of supplies plates and food on the table in the middle of the room, but paused to reproduce his flask. With a sardonic grin he lifted the bottle, bowed to Janet and drank the liquor neat. When he had finished, he turned the bottle upside down to show it was empty, then tossed it into a corner. Again he fixed his drunken, mocking smile upon her.
“Can’t preach to me about booze here, can you, honey?” he said. “Ought to take a swallow yourself; warm you up. I have plenty. Guess I better untie your hands now.” He advanced towards her, swaying slightly. “You’re going to love me from this time on, ain’t you, girlie?” He untied the handkerchief and dropped it at his feet. “No nonsense now about trying to get away; I’ll rope you for good if you try to start anything. Hello, what’s that?”
“No; give it to me!” she cried, in alarm as he pulled the folded sheets of paper from her stiffened fingers.
“Something I ought to see, maybe.” Then he added harshly, “Sit down, if you don’t care to have me teach you a thing or two. I’m master here.”
He stepped to the table and drawing a box beside him settled upon it, pulled the candle-stick nearer and began to read the document. Janet glanced swiftly about the room for a weapon. Escape past him she could not, for by a single spring he could bar the way; but could she lay hand on a stick of wood she might fight her way out. None was nearer than the fire, and again he could interpose.