“Yes, daddy. But he doesn’t enjoy it. How can he?” she replied, vigorously rubbing at the stove lids. “Think of him being hunted from place to place like a wild animal, the target for any man’s gun, without home or any one to care for him when he’s sick. Think of such a terrible existence!”
“When a feller tries an’ tries till the heart’s kicked outer him, ’tain’t hard to tempt him. That’s how I feel about it.” There was an ugly, suggestive note in his voice.
She paused in her scrubbing and gave him a quick, searching look. Some grim expression she saw in his face, a dangerous flicker in his eyes, filled her with sudden misgivings.
“I mean that!” he said harshly, with a vicious jerk of his head. He had taken the pipe from his mouth; his gaze was fastened on her accusingly. “Look at me! I bin kicked an’ kicked! Year in an’ year out I bin a-goin’ it, till I’m bruck down—petered out, an’ not a cussed thing to show for it. An’ look at other men who ain’t half as deservin’! What’ve I got, eh? What’ve you got?” He stiffened in his chair, gulped out suddenly in tones that reverberated through the silent little house: “An’ I’ve tried—God Almighty knows! An’ yore poor ma she—she died a-tryin’ an’ skimpin’ an’ dreamin’——”
“Father!” cried Dot aghast. Her face was white, drawn; her eyes wide with alarm.
Sitting there in the yellow lamplight, Lemuel Huntington was wild to behold; his features distorted into hideous lines; his hands clenched, his whole body trembling spasmodically. He burst into a horrible laugh.
“To-day, you doctor up a low-down murd’rous skunk that’d cut our throats to-morrow for the fun of it. An’ ten thousand dollars gits by us, eh? D’you hear that! D’you hear that? Ten thousand dollars for Billy Gee, dead or alive! D’you know what that means to us? An’ d’you reckon I’m goin’ to sit still an’ let you——”
“Blood money!” she broke in, gasping out the words. “Daddy, would you want to buy your food and drink—mine—our clothes, pleasures—would you be so inhuman as to find happiness at the expense of a miserable fellow creature?”
“It’s the law—like the ten-dollar bounty on the hide of the kiyote. Money is money,” he slung in savagely. “I want you to c’nsider me, yoreself, our c’ndition. I bin wantin’ to give you an edjucation, to carry out yore ma’s dyin’ wish. I want you to be somebody. We bin livin’ like dogs too long. I’m damn sick of it! Outside o’ Agatha Liggs, look at how them town hussies treat you! An’ them edjucated shysters who ain’t fit to grease my boots—what do I git from them? We need money. We got to git money—now. Right off, see? An’ if you can’t help me git it honest, ’cordin’ to law, I’ll start out to steal it! I’ll turn bandit, an’ it’ll be for you to hide me out an’ take care of me! What d’you say to that, eh? What’re you goin’ to do?”
He had risen to his feet as he spoke. He crossed the kitchen to her side and stood now, glowering down on her, cupidity, fury, desperation flaming from his eyes. Terrified, she stared at him. She knew at last the reason for the marked change in him, what he intimated. There was no way for her to dodge the issue.