The Wolf’s hold relaxed. It was as though his sudden storm had expended itself. He flung the cigarette away and looked into the girl’s furious face as she hurled the madness of her moment at him.
“Too much Sinclair?” she shrilled, striving for derision but accomplishing only violence. “I’ll see all of Sinclair I fancy to. All! You get that? I like Ernie Sinclair. I like him good. He’s a man. He’s a decent police boy, an’ not a crook ‘homebrew’ runner. He’s not the sort to brew poison up in the hills, an’ send folks raving crazy into the bughouse down across the border for the rotten dollars they haven’t more sense than to pass you. Who’re you? What sort of a man? You Wolf! I’ll tell you,” she raved. “A no-account. A poor ‘stray’ roped by the fool woman who stole you. God! I hate you! You ain’t a thing to me. Nothin’. I wouldn’t stand for you a brother. You hear? I’ll see Sinclair when I fancy. I’ll see him all I choose. If I feel that way I’ll marry——”
“You won’t kid!”
The storm in the man broke again. The Wolf’s face was ashen against his dark cap. Suddenly he leaped. It was like the noiseless spring of a puma, so swift, so sudden. The girl was caught by her shoulders and held by hands that crushed the flesh under them. And she stood there struggling for release while the man’s passion burned in eyes that seemed to be reading every secret of her soul.
“You won’t, kid,” the Wolf reiterated, through gritting teeth. “You’re goin’ to quit him right away. I know him. You don’t. You can’t know the scum he is. He isn’t for your sort. Only—— Say, you’re from the hills, clean as God made you. You’re not Molly Gros. If he gets around you after this, as sure as it’s snow-time in Buffalo Coulee, I’ll shoot him to death so ther’ ain’t enough meat left over to make a burial. That goes.”
The tenacious hands bruised mercilessly. Annette’s efforts to escape were unavailing.
“Quit, kid,” the Wolf went on. “It’s just no sort of use kickin’. I’ve got you now, an’ you’re goin’ to hear it all. I tell you ther’s only room for me around you. Not another livin’ soul. I’ve told you that years. I’ve told it ever since we fished together in the darn hills. You’re goin’ to marry me whatever he thinks, whatever you think. I love you. I love you to death. Say, I love you so I could beat the life out of your beautiful body rather than see it for another. You ken rave an’ shout. You ken claw with your darn mean hands. You ken raise all the hell your dandy notions set you to. It don’t matter a curse. Not a curse. Get it right now. Get it good. You’re mine. An’ you always will be. Psha!”
The girl reeled and nearly fell on the blazing stove. It was a sweeping gesture that came with the man’s final exclamation. It was the storm of his passion finding physical outlet. It was the man swept by the violence of the sex in him.
He stood there a wonderful figure of manly beauty, straight, and clean. And his burning eyes never left the face of the girl. He saw the violence behind it. He realized the fury in the heaving bosom for which he yearned. He remained silent and waiting.
And Annette came at once. But it was a different Annette from that which he knew. With superhuman effort the girl choked back the fury that well-nigh strangled her. She even forced a smile. The Wolf stared in amazement.