"Rid me of this man and I'll love you fast enough!" said Mabyn eagerly. His breath came thick and stertorous. "Ah! Let me once grind my heel in the smooth, sneering face of him! and you shall do what you like with me!" Rage robbed him of speech; he made mere brutish sounds in his throat.
By and by he managed to control himself; and his voice resumed its crafty, wheedling tone. "Only do what I tell you, my Rina, and you shall know what it is to be loved by a white man. I shall have no thought all day, but of you! Up to now you have done all the loving; I will repay it twice over! You shall be loved as no red woman was ever loved before!"
"'Erbe't! 'Erbe't! Don't mak' me do it!" she whispered terror-stricken.
Garth could stand no more. Springing to his feet, he strode forward, grasping the barrel of his rifle to use it for a club. Shooting was too merciful for such a creature.
"You damned scoundrel!" he cried.
Mabyn fell back against the wall with a gasping cry of fright. Quick as Garth was, Rina was quicker. Before he could reach the man, she scrambled over the ground, and clutched him by the knees.
"Let him be!" she screamed. "I kill you!"
Garth struggled vainly to free himself. Finally bending over and seizing her shoulders, he thrust her away. But the blow he again aimed at Mabyn never descended; for with incredible swiftness Rina gained her feet, and darted down hill.
"I kill her!" she shrilled.
A sickening fear gripped Garth's heart, instantly obliterating all thought of Mabyn. He dashed after Rina, nerved to a desperate fleetness. She knew the ground better than he; and hampered, moreover, by the weight of his gun, he despaired of overtaking the moccasined savage. But at the watercourse the strange creature stopped dead; and waited for him to come up.