The boulder against which Broom leaned was close beside the track, and the attitude he had assumed caused him to occupy most of it. To pass him so closely was to court certain discovery. Kasba resolved to make a slight detour, but she had not brought her snowshoes. She had left the house with the intention of taking only a short walk along the beaten track and had thought them unnecessary. Off the track the snow was deep and soft. What should she do?
On her left was a ridge of rocks presenting acclivities of every degree; on her right was a strip of scrub almost covered by loose snow. The track, beaten hard by Sahanderry on constant journeyings to his traps, led straight before her, and, blocking this narrow path was the inert figure of Broom. But between the track and the rocks was a narrow strip that to all seeming was perfectly hard. This she carefully tried with one foot. It bore her weight and with steady, cautious steps she passed on for a short time in safety. Then, with a peculiar, dull report, the crust gave way and the girl sank to her knees in soft snow.
Broom started nervously. Raising his head apprehensively he at once discovered Kasba and her unfortunate position.
With Broom’s eye upon her the distracted girl ceased her ineffectual struggles and stood staring at him wildly like one fascinated.
At first he believed her to be one of the multitudinous delusions of a deranged mind. But presently he was convinced that it was no delirious fantasy, but really Kasba’s self who was there, alone and in his power, and he laughed the loud mirthless laugh of one gone mad.
The girl quailed before his gaze of malicious triumph, then turned and made frantic efforts to release herself from the clogging snow and to regain the hard track.
“Not so fast,” cried Broom, rushing in and grasping her by the waist. “Not so fast, my little white partridge.”
In vain Kasba struggled while Broom rained hot kisses on her mouth. She could not prevent him. She was in his power indeed.
But just when she had given up in despair Broom suddenly uttered a terrific yell and loosened his grip. The girl stood bewildered. She was dimly conscious that her captor had released her and was now scuffling with something small and dark, and mechanically she drew herself out of his reach. Then, floundering desperately out of the soft snow to the beaten track, she fled along with a speed born of panic-stricken horror; never pausing, never looking back, but rushing straight on and on—to her father’s hut.
Broom, swearing like a madman, looked about him. A dark form had dropped seemingly from the sky, to spring forward upon his right arm, where it clung with the tenacious grip of a bulldog. He was taken completely by surprise. In his nervously-excited condition the suddenness of the attack had startled him. He imagined himself assailed by some uncanny foe or some fierce wolf, and he had released the girl the better to defend himself, and Kasba was beyond all possibility of recapture before he discovered, to his chagrin, that his adversary was no ferocious animal, but the boy David, who had discovered Kasba’s precarious position and slid down the face of the almost perpendicular rocks to launch himself upon her assailant. In an ungovernable paroxysm of baffled fury he now rained blows upon the boy’s unprotected face. David clung to his wrists for some moments longer, then sank on the snow with a moan of pain, and lay there limp and lifeless.