All the while Timber-Wolf was muttering and glaring at his watch and clinching her wrist; all the while forgetting that he held her. And, this also she knew, regretting that he had the job set before him of shooting down another man.
Lynette, her whole body atingle, every sense keyed up to its highest stressing, knew as soon as did Bruce Standing when he was going to drop her wrist and jerk his gun up. The five minutes were passing; still, though at a distance far up on the ridge, seen only by glimpses now and then under the setting sun, Babe Deveril was driving on, a man half bereft of his sober senses, his brain reeling from savage blows and on fire with rage and mortification; they saw him among the pines; they lost him; they saw him again. Never once had he turned to look back. Yet it did not seem that he hastened....
Timber-Wolf, growling deep down in his throat, lifted his rifle. But Lynette, before the act, knew! She flung herself with sudden fury upon his uplifted arm; she caught it, and with the weight of her body dragged it down. He sought to fling her off; she wrapped both of her arms about his right arm; she jerked at it so that he could have no slightest hope of a steady aim....
He turned and looked down into her eyes; deep ... deep. For what seemed to her a long, long time he stood looking down into her eyes.
Then, with sudden anger, he thrust her aside. Without looking to see if she had fallen or stumbled and run, he raised his rifle again.
But just in time Babe Deveril was gone, over the ridge....
CHAPTER XII
"And now that you're half scared to death, you'd like to make a man believe that you are not afraid of the devil himself!"