"Let me go——," she commanded. "You're hurtin' me."
"Was it——?"
"Yes. Let me go."
The stranger's grip on her arm suddenly relaxed and while she watched his face in curiosity the glow in his eyes suddenly flickered out, his gaze shifting from side to side as he seemed to shrink away from her. From timidity at his roughness she found new courage in her curiosity at his strange behavior. What had this stranger to do with Ben Cameron?
"What did you want to know for?" she asked him.
But his bent brows were frowning at the path at his feet. He tried to laugh—and the sound of the dry cackle had little mirth in it.
"No matter. I—I thought it might be. I guess ye'd better go—I guess ye'd better." And with that he sank heavily in Peter's chair again.
But Beth still stood and stared at him, aware of the sudden change in his attitude toward her. What did it all mean? What were Peter's relations with this creature who behaved so strangely at the mention of her name? Why did he speak of Ben Cameron? Who was he? Who——?
The feeling of which she had at first been conscious, at the man's evil leering smile which repelled her suddenly culminated in a pang of intuition. This man ... It must be ... Hawk Kennedy—the man who ... She stared at him with a new horror in the growing pallor of her face and Hawk Kennedy saw the look. It was as though some devilish psychological contrivance had suddenly hooked their two consciousnesses to the same thought. Both saw the same picture—the sand, the rocks, the blazing sun and a dead man lying with a knife in his back.... And Beth continued staring as though in a kind of horrible fascination. And when her lips moved she spoke as though impelled by a force beyond her own volition.
"You—you're Hawk Kennedy," she said tensely, "the man who killed my father."