The halls were dark, but she dared not turn on the electric lights, lest she should awaken Sandy or her father. Feeling her way along the wall, she found the stairs, and clinging to the bannister went quickly down. A moment to seek the door knob, and swing the big door open. At last she was out of the house.
The cold air smote and revived her. It gave her courage and strength.
The darkness was slowly lifting, and all over the sky the silvery waves of morning were now spreading. Hilda sped like a fawn across the barn yard, through the corrals and directly to the saddle room, from whence came the light. The upper part of the door was open, and Hilda pushed the lower part and stepped inside.
A man in white chaps was bending over a saddle to which he was attaching a lariat rope. As the lower door slammed shut behind Hilda, he started like an overtaken thief, and jumped around. Hilda saw his face. It was Holy Smoke.
All at once Hilda McPherson knew that before her stood the man who had tried to lariat her in the woods. She stared at him now in a sort of fascinated horror. A cunning look of surprised delight was creeping over the man’s face. Hilda put her hand behind her and backed for the door. At the same time, once again she raised her voice, and sent forth that loud cry of alarm:
“Hi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-iiiii-i-i-i-i!”
The cry was choked midway. She was held in a strangling hold, the big hand of the cowpuncher gripped upon her throat.
“There’ll be none of the Hi-yi-ing for you to-day! If you make another peep, I’ll choke you to death! I’m quittin’ O Bar O for good and all to-day, but before I go you and me has got an account to settle.”
She fought desperately, with all her splendid young strength, scratching, kicking, biting, beating with her fists like a wild thing at bay, and, with the first release as he staggered back, when her sharp teeth dug into his hands, again she raised her voice; but this time her cry was stopped by the brutal blow of the man’s fist. She clutched at the wall behind her. The earth seemed to rock and sway and for the first time in all her healthy young life, Hilda McPherson fainted.
She lay on a sheepskin, a man’s coat beneath her head. Chum Lee knelt beside her, cup in hand. She swallowed with difficulty, for her throat pained her and she still felt the grip of those terrible fingers. Hilda moaned and moved her head from side to side. The Chinaman said cheerfully: