His voice was hoarse as he said: “You look upon me with contempt because I am poor. I know your kind, and——”
“Like them.” The interruption was coolly made. Frams turned red, and his eyes glittered savagely.
“Yes, I like your kind,” he hissed, “though I despise them, also.” Irritated by her cool, sneering expression, he continued fiercely: “I love you, and I want to tame you, to bring you down from your high horse and make you sing small for your attitude toward those you consider your inferiors.”
“You make love in a most peculiar way,” Sybil replied, with a smile that made the villain grit his teeth. “Until to-day I was scarcely aware that you existed. But your stupendous insolence has forced you upon my notice. Be kind enough to remove your hand from the bridle. If you were a gentleman, I would not have to ask twice.”
With an oath, Frams let his hand fall to his side. As the girl rode on, he shook his fist at her and said loud enough for her to hear: “Go on, but don’t think you have done with me. A day of reckoning is coming.”
On her return to the ranch house, Sybil did not mention her meeting with Edward Frams. She believed that the incident was closed, and that the cowboy would in future keep his distance.
She was not ill pleased when at night Frams threw up his job, received his money, mounted his pony, and rode away, declaring that he was going back to Mexico.
Two nights afterward, Sybil, who slept in a room on the first floor, with window opening on the long veranda, was awakened from a sound sleep by a noise near her couch. Before she could cry out, a handkerchief, saturated with chloroform, was pressed against her nostrils, and her senses left her. When she returned to consciousness, she found herself strapped to the back of a horse.
It was still dark, and the horse was going at a gallop along the trail toward the mountains.
In front was another horse, and upon its back, a cruel smile upon his dark face, was Edward Frams, the cowboy.