At sight of this woman whose unproved, hidden workings had meant so much to her, Nance Allison’s face went slowly white.
She stood still in the door, straight and quiet, and looked at her in silence.
At the prolonged intensity of her scrutiny Cattle Kate flung up her head and smiled, a conscious, insolent action.
“If you don’t want all the door, young woman,” she said, “please.”
She made a move to pass, but Nance suddenly put out a hand.
There was an abrupt dignity in the motion, a sort of last-stand authority.
“I do,” said the girl, “want it all. I have something to tell McKane, and you may as well hear it.”
The imperious face of Kate Cathrew flushed darkly with the rising tide of her temper.
“Get—out—of—that—door,” she said distinctly, but for once she was not obeyed.
The big girl standing on the threshold looked over her head at the trader. There was a little white line pinched in at the base of Nance’s nostrils, her blue eyes were colder and narrower than any one had ever seen them in her life.