“I am so glad you have come,” she said breathlessly, quickly. “Hurry. Did you get a rifle?”
“Are you glad?” his voice changed. “Yes, I have it.”
“The horse is suffering so terribly.”
He looked at her with a certain wistfulness which was unusual.
He is going to tell me he is sorry for that, she thought, remembering the squaw and the child who had come near them.
“Go, go and put him out of his misery,” she said, with quick anger and excitement. “There is so much torture, so much suffering for animals, women, and children. Oh, God! it is awful!”
He turned and saw the Indian girl.
“You,” he said merely, but with bitterness, almost hatred, in his tone. “Go away.”
“You are a brute,” said Launa, “to talk to her in that way. What has she done? Go and kill the horse.”
“Not until you are further away,” he said, with gentleness. “He may, and probably will, scream. That woman is not fit for you to talk to or to touch.”