It was characteristic of him that he always wanted more what he could not get.
“Don’t answer so quick, girl. Listen to me. I’ve got enough in that sack to start us in the cattle business in Argentina. There’s more buried in the hills, if we need it. Girl, I tell you I’m going to run straight from to-day!”
She laughed scornfully. “And in the same breath you tell me how much you have stolen and are taking with you. If you were a Crœsus, I wouldn’t go with you.” She flamed into sudden, fierce passion. “Will you never understand that I hate and detest you?”
“You think you do, but you don’t. You love me—only you won’t let yourself believe it.”
“There’s no arguing with such colossal conceit,” she retorted, with hard laughter. “It’s no use to tell you that I should like to see you dead at my feet.”
Swiftly he slid a revolver from its holster, and presented it to her, butt first. “You can have your wish right easy, if you mean it. Go to it. There’s 339 no danger. All you’ve got to give out is that I frightened you. You’ll be a heroine, too.”
She looked at the weapon and at him, and the very thought of it made her sick. She saw the thing almost as if it were already done—the smoking revolver in her hand, and the man lying motionless before her.
“Take it away,” she said, with a shudder.
“You see, you can’t do it! You can’t even go to the window there and shout out that Black MacQueen is with you in the house. You don’t hate me at all, my dear.”
“Because I won’t kill you with my own hand? You reason logically.”