"But I can! I am master here, understand? And you.... By heaven, you are nothing but my slave so long as I tolerate you!... Look here, what I brought for you!... For I knew I'd find you!"
He began unwinding from his big body a thin steel chain, a chain which he had brought with him from his ranch headquarters, where it had served as leash for a wolf-hound. With a quick movement he snapped the end of it about her waist; there was a steel padlock scarcely bigger than a silver half-dollar; she heard the click as he locked it. Then he stood back from her, the other end of the slight chain in his hand ... and laughed at her!
"The sign of your servitude!... Proud? One way to make you pay! Will you laugh again, girl? Will you, do you think, ever have the second chance to shoot me in the back?... Come; we must be on our way before daylight."
He caught up his rifle; that, together with the end of her chain, he held in his hand. He began putting out the fire, stamping on the living coals. Making her follow him, he went to the creek several times for water, which he carried in his big hat, which held so much more than any tin can in camp. When the fire was out, he turned with her toward the bowery shelter which Babe Deveril, working and singing, had made for her. With his shuffling boots he kicked the culled branches into two heaps. He wrapped the end of her chain about his wrist; she heard the snap as he fastened it. He thrust his rifle under him.
"I am going to sleep," he told her bluntly and cast himself down. "You with your payment just begun, may lie awake all night ... wondering...."
... But it was a long, long while, a weary time of darkness sprinkled with stars before he went to sleep. She sat up on her couch of boughs, the chain about her waist galling her....
CHAPTER XIII
It may appear a strange thing that Lynette Brooke slept at all that night. But a fatigued body, healthy and young, demanded its right, and she did sleep and sleep well. A far stranger thing was that, after she had sat in the dark a long time, there had at last come a queer little smile upon her lips and into her eyes, and she had gone to sleep smiling!