"You did! For I saw you! I was right there, close by...."
Within the cabin Bruce Standing, sitting very tense and straight, nearly choking his big dog into silence, grew tenser and harder. So, Taggart claimed to have seen her.... Taggart was "right there, close by...."
"You say you saw me!" gasped Lynette. "You!"
"I tell you this is no time for palaver," said Taggart impatiently. "What do you care, so long as I agree to let you go free? And to let Deveril go free along with you! I guess that means something to you, don't it? If it don't mean enough, let me show you: I can grab you right now; me, I'm not afraid of any gun any woman ever waved! And I can put you across for a good little vacation in jail. But I'm letting that go by, wanting to get my hooks in one Bruce Standing, good and deep. And I got just that! Seeing as Deveril told me what happened; how Standing swooped down on you, how he beat Deveril up, how he put a chain on you and dragged you away after him! If you'll step into court and swear to that.... Why, kid, I got him! Got him right! Any jury in this country will land on him hard for doing to a woman like that. And you can tell the other things he's done to you by now, you and him all alone up here, him a brutal devil...."
Illogically enough it swept over her that it was she herself, Lynette, whom the man was insulting, and her finger trembled so upon the trigger that all unknowing Jim Taggart stood for the instant close upon the verge of the great final blackness. But, steadying herself, she managed to say:
"Babe Deveril told you that? That Bruce Standing had put a chain about me? How did he know? That was after he had gone!"
"But," muttered Taggart harshly, "he did not go so fast! He went up over a ridge and he stopped and rested, and in the dark he came back a bit and he hid and saw! Anyway, it's the truth, ain't it? And I know? So he must have come back to see!"
That thought became on the instant the only thought, one to rise up and obstruct all others. Deveril had seen; he had lingered, hidden in the forest land; he had watched her humiliation; he had known that Bruce Standing, though armed, was a man sorely wounded ... and he had not come to her then!