"Nothing like coffee when your cork's pulled," he rambled on, sloshing round the last of the coffee in the bottom of the cup. "It beats whisky, but now that I've had the coffee I don't care if I do. Got a bottle tucked away somewhere, li'l girl?"
She was still unable to speak. Her mouth had an odd, cottony feeling. She shook her head in reply to his question.
"Is that so?" he said in the chatty tone he had been using. "I guess maybe you're mistaken."
He set the cup down on the table, reached down and twisted his fingers into her hair. With a yank that brought the tears springing to her eyes, he said:
"About that bottle now—ain't you a mite mistaken? What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?"
Again he pulled her hair, pulled it till the tears ran down her cheeks, and she moaned and cried in purest agony.
"C'mon!" directed Dan Slike. "Quit your bluffin', you triflin' hussy! You ain't hurt a-tall. And I can't stay here all night while you sit on the floor and beller. Stand up on your two legs and bring me that bottle. And no monkey business either. Say, have you got a six-shooter? Answer me, have you?"
"No! No! I haven't! I haven't another gun." She told him this lie in such a heart-breaking tone that he was constrained to believe her.
"I'll have to take your word for it," he grumbled. "But you remember, girl, the first false move you make with a knife or anything else, I'll blow you apart. Damn you, get up!"
With which he gave her hair such a terrific twist that the exquisite pain expelled all her initial fear of him, and she leaped at him like a wildcat, her nails curving at his eyes.