“Blera!” Sark’s vicious voice thundered in the cabin.
Swift as his wolf-dog he sprang up.
For a moment he stared at her as across a gulf, his blue eyes blazing. Then the lightning-fire of his glance struck her companion.
“You can drop your hood, too, Cantine!”
With the ultimatum Sark’s lingers slid back and seized the rifle lying in his bunk on the wall, for he looked to see a weapon flash in Cantine’s hand and guessed that one of them had traveled his last trail.
But Blera was upon him on the instant, pressing down the gun.
“You can’t harm us, Eric! You can’t harm us!” she declared hysterically. “You can’t touch us here, people you’ve broken bread with under your own roof. You know that’s the Northland law!”
Again Sark stared at her as across a gulf and dropped the rifle on the bunk.
“You’re right,” he admitted slowly, nodding his head as if she had expounded some all-powerful decree. “Though laws aren’t worth a Siwash curse to you two, they are to me. You’re safe—for the night. Because now I savvy that ‘brother in the Miner’s Range’ was only lyin’ bluff.”
“But look here, Sark,” whined Jose, “we—”