"What do you mean?"
"I mean that clasped in the hand of the man you murdered is the missing half of that torn lock upon your forehead."
With a yell Roach sprang to the door only to be confronted by the muzzle of Landless' pistol.
"Wait a moment," he said composedly. "Oh, you need not be afraid! I intend to let you go. But you don't leave this tobacco house until after I have left it myself."
"Curse you!" cried the other, foaming at the lips.
"You are ungrateful. I not only promise not to witness against you, but I aid you to escape."
"For reasons of your own," suggested Trail.
"Precisely: for reasons of my own. If you are taken, I will hold my tongue just so long as you hold yours. If you escape now, I will pray that my day of reckoning will yet come. And it will be a heavy reckoning."
"Ay, that it will!" cried the murderer with brutal fury. "You 've got the upper hand now: but wait! Every dog has his day, and I 'll have mine! and when it comes, I 'll do for you! I 'll smash your beauty! I 'll draw more blood from you than ever the whip of the overseer did! I 'll use you worse than I used that old man last night, who writhed and struggled, and tried to pray! I 'll—"
With white lips and blazing eyes Landless sprang forward, and clapped the mouth of the pistol to the ruffian's temple. Roach recoiled, then sunk upon his knees with an abject whine for mercy.