"I to keep an engagement; you to accompany me."
He supposed that he had told her nothing. And yet she, quick-witted, having never let slip from her mind a certain suspicion when Mexicali Joe had too readily succumbed to Taggart, cried out:
"To a meeting with Mexicali Joe!"
"What makes you think that?" he asked sharply.
She pretended to laugh at him. He ate in silence; drank his coffee; thereafter, stuffing a pipe full of crude black tobacco, smoked thoughtfully. All the while the fire burned lower and the darkness, ringing them around, drew closer in. She had been on the alert, while looking to be hopelessly bowed where she sat. Suddenly he was at her side, his grip like a steel bracelet about her wrist.
"About ready to jump and run for it?" he taunted her. "Not to-night, my girl; and not to-morrow night nor yet for many a day to come. I've got my own plans for you."
"Are you going to take me back to Big Pine? To hand me over to the law, with a charge of attempted murder against me?"
"I am going to take you with me on into the wilderness. Into a country which is absolutely the kingdom of Bruce Standing. Haven't I told you that I have my own plans for you? I can hand you over to the cheap degradation of a trial and conviction and jail sentence whenever I am ready for it...."
"You can't keep me from killing myself...."