He came closer.
"Get up!" he ordered. "Take that chair. And don't start no rough-house; whether you're a woman or not, I'll drill you!"
She groped to the indicated chair and raised herself, the single snowshoe still dragging from one foot. Again the man surveyed her. She saw his eyes and gave another inarticulate cry.
"Shut your mouth and keep it shut! You hear me?"
She obeyed.
The greenish light burned brighter in his mismated eyes, which gazed intently at the top of her head as though it held something unearthly.
"Take off your hat!" was his next command.
She pulled off the toque. Her hair fell in a mass on her snow-blotched shoulders. Her captor advanced upon her. He reached out and satisfied himself by touch that something was not there which he dreaded. In hypnotic fear she suffered that touch. It reassured him.
"Your hair now," he demanded; "it don't stand up, does it? No, o' course it don't. You ain't him; you're a woman. But if your hair comes up, I'll kill you—understand? If your hair comes up, I'll kill you!"
She understood. She understood only too well. She was not only housed with a murderer; she was housed with a maniac. She sensed, also, why he had come to this mountain shack so boldly. In his dementia he knew no better. And she was alone with him, unarmed now.