“Thin Lee cried out, ‘Did she leave HIM?’
“‘Yes, she did,’ sez the gurl. ‘She wuz goin’ back. Home! Takin’ me home. But the caravan wuz attacked by Injuns. An’ all but me wor massacred.”
“Durade cut short the gurl’s spache. If I iver seen a reptoile it wuz thin.
“‘Lee, they both left me,’ he hisses. ‘I tracked them. I lost the mother, but caught the daughter.’
“Thin thot Durade lost his spache fer a minnit, foamin’ at the mouth wid rage. If yez niver seen a greaser mad thin yez niver seen the rale thin’. His face changed yaller an’ ould an’ wrinkled, wid spots of red. His lip curled up loike a wolf’s, an’ his eyes—they wint down to little black points of hell’s fire. He wuz crazy.
“‘Look at her!’ he yelled. ‘Allie Lee! Flesh an’ blood yez can’t deny! Her baby!... An’ she’s been my slave—my dog to beat an’ kick! She’s been through Benton! A toy fer the riff-raff of the camps!... She’s as vile an’ black an’ lost as her treacherous mother!’
“Allison Lee shrunk under thot shame. But the gurl! Lord! she niver looked wot she was painted by thot devil. She stood white an’ still, like an angel above judgment.
“Durade drew one of thim little derringers. An’ sudden he hild it on Lee, hissin’ now in his greaser talk. I niver seen sich hellish joy on a human face. Murder was nothin’ to thot look.
“Jist thin I seen Neale an’ Slingerland, an’, by Gawd! I thought I’d drop. They seemed to loom up. The girl screamed wild-loike an’ she swayed about to fall. Neale leaped in front of Lee.
“‘Durade!’ he spit out, an’ dom’ me if I didn’t expect to see the roof fly off.”