The four men were in Bruce Standing's old cabin; the door was wide open, since here, so far from the world, in the dense outer fringes of Timber-Wolf's isolated wilderness kingdom, no man of them ... saving Joe alone, who had now given up hope ... had a thought of another human eye to see; Shipton, at a curt word from Taggart, had piled the mouth of the fireplace full of dead-wood, for the sole sake of light, and it was hot in the small room. Taggart had bound the Mexican's hands behind him, drawing the thong so tight that it cut cruelly into the flesh.... Taggart had knocked Joe down and had booted him to his heart's content; the swarthy face had turned a sick white. Taggart's eyes were glowing like coals raked out from hell's own sulphurous fires; he was sure of the outcome, sure of swift success, and yet now, in pure fiendishness, more absorbed in his own unleashed deviltry than in the mere matter of raw gold, which he counted securely his as soon as he was ready for it. Whether or not Indian blood ran in his veins, elemental savagery did.
Mexicali Joe, unable to rise, or in fear for his life if he stirred, lay on the floor, his eyes dilated with terror, staring up into Taggart's convulsed face.
"I tell you the true!" he screamed. "This time, before God, I tell——"
"Shut up, you greaser-dog!" Taggart, a man of full measure, kicked him, and under the driving pain inflicted by that heavy boot, Joe's eyes flickered and closed, and Joe's brain staggered upon the dizzy black verge of unconsciousness. Taggart saw and understood and pitched a dipperful of water in his face. Joe gasped faintly. Taggart stepped to the fireplace, and snatched out a blazing pine branch.
"I've put my brand on more'n one treacherous dog!" he jeered. "You'll find my stock running across the wild places in seven States! Here's where I plant the sign of the cross on you, Mexico! Right square between the eyes!"
Suddenly he thrust the burning brand toward Joe's forehead. Joe cried out in terror:
"For the love of God!..." His two hands were behind him, but, galvanized, he fought the pine fagot with his whole body. He strove to thrust it aside; he fought against his weakness to roll over; Taggart's heavy foot was in his middle, holding him down; the burning branch in Taggart's heavy hands was as steady as a steel rod set in concrete; Joe's threshing panic disturbed it scarcely more than the wind would have done.... Another scream, shrilling through the night; the smell of burnt flesh; a red wound on Joe's forehead; Taggart's ugly laugh; and then suddenly, from just without the open doorway, a terrible shout from Bruce Standing, and then, in two seconds, Bruce Standing's great bulk among them.
"My God!" roared Standing. "My God! ... You, Jim Taggart!..."
Shipton's rifle stood in a corner; Shipton, as lithe as a cat, leaped for it. Gallup's was in his hand; he whipped it to his shoulder. Taggart for one instant was stupefied; then he swept high above his head the smoke-emitting, redly glowing pine limb. Joe, weeping hysterically, writhing on the floor, was gasping: "Jesus Maria!" ... God had heard his prayers; God and Bruce Standing.