He brought it, then closed the door. Awkwardly he stood above her.
“Had a hell’v a close call,” he growled sulkily. It did not suit him to entertain a second guest.
Vicky let the whisky drop between the lips. Presently Hugh opened his eyes. He smiled feebly at her. Surprise wiped out the smile. “Little Vicky,” he murmured.
“Ump-hu,” she nodded. Then, to the hulking figure behind her, the girl gave order: “Help me carry him nearer the fire. He’s ’most frozen.”
The fellow shambled forward and stooped down. As he did so his eyes fell on the face of the helpless traveller. He ripped out a savage oath. With the sweep of an arm he dragged the girl to her feet and hurled her back to the wall.
His fury struggled for expression. “Gotcha. Gotcha good an’ right. I’m gonna stomp the life outa you. Gona put my heel on yore throat an’ crack yore spine. Un’erstand?”
Victoria knew the ruffian now. A flash of memory carried her back to a day in her childhood when she had seen a horrible apelike figure standing over the prostrate body of a man from which life had just been violently ejected. She saw the same gargoyle face, the same hulking muscle-bound shoulders and long arms with hairy wrists projecting from the coat sleeves. Her memory brought her a second picture of the same incident. A smiling young fellow was lifting her gently from the ground. His hand was caressing her hair softly as he spoke. She recalled even his words. “Run right along into the wagon where yore dad is, li’l girl, an’ don’t turn yore head.”
The girl’s arm rested on a shelf, in the same position where it had fallen when she had been hurled back. Her fingers touched something cold.
“You first. Yore brother next,” the guttural voice of Dutch went on, and the horrible malice of it seemed unhuman. “I been waitin’ a mighty long time, an’ I gotcha at last. Sure have. Thought I was scared of you an’ that damned high-heeled brother o’ yourn, did you? Me, I was settin’ back an’ waitin’—waitin’ for my chance. An’ it’s come, like I knew it would. Beg. Whine like a papoose. It won’t do you no good, but go to it jest the same. Hear me—before I turn you over an’ crack yore backbone at the neck.”
His gloating was horrible. It sent chills through Victoria’s blood. Her fingers spasmodically closed—on the ivory handle of a revolver. The force of the recoil had flung her hand into contact with the revolver Dutch had tossed on the shelf a few hours earlier.