Over Sorenson’s shoulder he saw Janet Hosmer’s face, pale and drawn but with a sudden joy flaming there. If ever gratitude were written on human countenance, it was on hers. Gratitude––and more! Something that sent Steele Weir’s blood rushing anew through his body, with hope, with a song, with he knew not what.
Janet suddenly jerked herself free and stepped back, her head held high and proud.
“You’ll never touch me again, you coward. Look behind you,” she exclaimed.
Involuntarily Sorenson turned head on shoulder. The frown still darkened his liquor-flushed face and the sneer yet twisted his lips so that his mustache was drawn back from his teeth. Thus he remained as if changed to stone.
What he saw was the man he most dreaded, with a shadow of a smile on his lips, his figure motionless, his hand ready, like an avenging Nemesis from out of the night. A perceptible shudder shook the fellow. Weir it was––“Cold Steel,” whose counter-stroke against one man already had been swift and deadly, whom nothing checked or turned or terrified, who now for a second time was plucking away the fruit of Sorenson’s efforts, who probably on this occasion would shoot him outright.
For a moment Steele Weir regarded him in silence. But at last he spoke:
“Stand away from that lady, you skunk!”
Sorenson moved hastily aside.