“Anything at all,” Mackenzie returned, unslinging his pack, letting it down wearily at his feet.
“My man would not like it. You have heard of Swan Carlson?”
“No; but I’ll pay for it; he’ll have no right to kick.”
“You have come far if you have not heard of Swan Carlson. His name is on the wind like a curse. Better you would go on, sir; my man would kill you if he found you in this house.”
She moved a step to reach and lay the plate on a table close at hand. As she lifted her foot there was the sharp clink of metal, as of a dragging chain. Mackenzie had heard it before when she stepped nearer the door, and now he bent to look into the shadow that fell over the floor from the flaring bottom of the lantern.
“Madam,” said he, indignantly amazed by the barbarous thing he beheld, “does that man keep you a prisoner here?”
“Like a dog,” she said, nodding her untidy head, lifting her foot to show him the chain.
It was a common trace-chain from plow harness; two of them, in fact, welded together to give her length to go about her household work. She had a freedom of not 11 more than sixteen feet, one end of the chain welded about her ankle, the other set in a staple driven into a log of the wall. She had wrapped the links with cloths to save her flesh, but for all of that protection she walked haltingly, as if the limb were sore.
“I never heard of such inhuman treatment!” Mackenzie declared, hot to the bone in his burning resentment of this barbarity. “How long has he kept you tied up this way?”
“Three years now,” said she, with a weary sigh.