"By God!" he shouted.
He let her go and sought the rifle. She was first to find it and put it into his searching hand.
"He is a contemptible coward!" she cried. "As if...."
Standing had the rifle now, and thrust by her and rushed into the open doorway, Thor snarling at his side; and Standing's voice, lifted mightily, shouted:
"Come ahead, Taggart! I'm waiting and ready for you! Come ahead!"
Later he laughed at himself for that, and thereafter explained his laughter to Lynette, saying:
"He hasn't a gun on him! I cleaned him out, all but one pocket gun, and I fancy he emptied that at me ... in the back. Come—we'll have a fire!"
Hastily she shut the door, lest Taggart might have one shot left. Standing set his rifle down against the wall; she heard the thud of the stock upon the floor. Clearly he had no fear of Taggart's return. He began gathering up bits of wood, kneeling to get a fire started. Presently under his hands the blaze leaped up and brought detail vividly blossoming from the dark of the room; his face, white, with the most eager, shining eyes she had ever seen; her own face scarcely less pale; the homely appointments of the place. He was still on his knees at the fireplace; he threw on the last bit of wood and watched the quick flames lick at it; he swerved about, and it seemed that his eyes, no less than the inflammable wood, had caught fire as he cried out in a voice which startled her and in words which set her wondering:
"I told you, girl, I'd let you go scot-free ... unless! And here I bogged down like a broken-legged steer in the quicksands! But now ... Now! I've got it all figured out. I don't let you go! Neither to-night ..." and he was on his feet, towering over her—"or ever!"
And, as quick as thought, he was at the door and had shot a bolt home and had clicked a padlock, and, swinging about again, stood looking down at her, his eyes filled with dancing lights.