A moment Mackenzie’s finger stiffened to send a bullet into Reid’s brain, for he considered only that such depravity was its own warrant of death. But Reid was unarmed, and there was something in his attitude that seemed to disclose that it was a bluff. Joan was not there.
Joan was not there. She would not remain silent and unresisting, shut in a room while a cold-blooded scoundrel bargained to deliver her for a price like a ewe out of his flock. Reid was playing to even the deceit Carlson had put over on him in dealing for the stolen sheep. It was a bluff. Joan was not there.
Mackenzie let down the weapon. It was not the moment for interference; he would allow the evidence to accumulate before passing sentence and executing it with summary hand.
“Come across with the money before we go any further,” said Reid, firm in his manner, defiantly confident in his bearing. “I’ve got to get out of this country before morning.”
“I wouldn’t give five hundred dollars for her,” Swan declared. “How do I know she’d stay with me? She might run off tomorrow if I didn’t have a chain on her.”
Reid said nothing. He backed a little nearer the door as if he had it in mind to call the negotiations off. Swan looked at him with chin thrust forward, neck extended.
“She ain’t here––you’re a liar!” he charged.
“All right; there’s a pair of us, then.”
“I’ve brought my woman––” Swan stretched out his hand to call attention to her where she cowered in her chair––“fixed up to meet you like a bride. Woman for woman, I say; that’s enough for any man.”