“See she keeps her mouth shut,” he said threateningly.  “If she ain’t got sense enough for that she ain’t got sense to go on living.”

Benny stooped and feasted his eyes on her.  Then, straightening up, he turned to Jarrold with nodding approval.

“She skins anything I ever saw,” he admitted.

In some strange way it seemed to Gloria that both Benny and Brodie had consigned her to Jarrold as though they admitted his prior claim; as though, among these three, she was looked upon as the property of one.  She struggled to her feet.

“Don’t let her go,” said Brodie.  “That’s all I got to say about her right now.”

She made an uncertain step toward the mouth of the cave.  Jarrold moved at her side.  She went faster.  He put his hand on her.

“Didn’t you hear what he said?” he asked.

She tried to break away and run.  He held her One clear thought and only one formed in her mind.  As she had never longed for anything in her life, she yearned for Mark King.

“Mark!” she screamed, “Mark King!  Save me.”

Jarrold clapped a big dirty hand over her mouth.  He put a wiry arm about her and lifted her and carried her back to the fireside.

“None of that,” he growled in her ear.  She shrank away as she felt the tensing of his arm and was conscious of the contact of his rag-clothed body.  She grew silent, cowering.  She heard a sound of something dragging and could not hide her fascinated eyes.  Thus she watched as Brodie gripped the slack of Gratton’s coat shoulders and shoved the body out into the snow.  She even marked how the living man spat after the dead.

“Go to the coyotes,” he muttered.  “They’re your kind.”

Gloria knew that if she took a step Jarrold would clutch her again.  So she stood very still.  Brodie came back and threw some wood on the fire and squatted down over the provisions, seeming to be taking stock of them.  Perhaps he was but strengthening his heart, digesting the evidence of the case, assuring himself again after the accomplished fact that the deed was just.  Still squatting, he drank again, this time from the bottle which had been Gratton’s.  As he tilted it up she saw that it was two-thirds full.  When he put it down with a long sigh and wiped his wet mouth it was not over half-full.  He brooded over the fire, he gave no sign of noticing her.

“Let me go,” she said to Jarrold.  “I am sick.  I’d die here.  Please let me go.”

Jarrold shifted and looked to his companions.  Benny shook his head.

“There ain’t no hurry,” he stated judicially.  “What sort is she, Steve?”

“She come up to Gaynor’s place along with Gratton,” answered Jarrold as though he knew all about her.  “He was crazy gone on her, crazy enough to want to marry her, even.  Sent me for the judge.  Then Mark King showed up.  She fell for him and gave Gratton the go-by.  Then she comes into the mountains with King, I guess.  Next she gets tired of him and goes back to Gratton.”