She struck him, kicked and twisted with all her splendid, lithe strength, but it was in vain. He clung like a leech, dragging her closer in spite of all she 224 could do. She beat at his snarling face and the mouth out of which were whining things she fortunately did not understand. His yellow fangs were bare and saliva dripped from them.
Disgust and horror was overwhelming her. His iron arms were bending her backward. She tried again to tear free, stepped back, stumbled, went down with a crash. He sprang upon her, grunting and whistling, seized her hair and lifted her head, to send it crashing against the ground.
The world went black as she lost consciousness.
The prospector got to his feet, grumbling and cursing. He did not seem to feel the bruises left on his face by her competent hands. He stooped over her, felt her breast and found her heart beating.
“She ain’t goin’ to die. She ain’t goin’ to die yet. She’ll tell old Jim what’s writ on that paper. She’ll tell him where the gold is.”
He left her lying there while he went to get his outfit. The packs were dragged off and flung to the ground, where saddle and rifle followed them. Then he went into the tent.
He pitched the rifle left by Sucatash out into the snow, kicked the girl’s saddle aside, dumped her bedding and her clothes on the floor, tore and fumbled among things that his foul hands should never have touched nor his evil eyes have seen. He made a fearful wreck of the place and, finally, came upon her hand bag, which, womanlike, she had clung to 225 persistently, carrying it in her saddle pockets when she rode.
The small samples of ore he gloated over lovingly, mouthing and gibbering. But finally he abandoned them, reluctantly, and dug out the two notes.
Brandon’s letter he read hastily, chuckling over it as though it contained many a joke. But he was more interested in the other scrawl, whose strange words completely baffled him. He tried in vain to make out its meaning, turning it about, peering at it from all angles, like an evil old buzzard. Then he gave way to a fit of rage, whining curses and making to tear the thing into bits. But his sanity held sufficiently to prevent that.
Finally he folded the paper up and tucked it into a pocket. Then he gathered up the bedding, took it outside and roughly bundled the girl in it. She lay unconscious and dreadfully white, with the snow sifting steadily over her. Her condition had no effect on the old ruffian who callously let her lie, covering her only to prevent her freezing to death before he could extract the information he desired.