“Aren’t you?” Miss Blake asked roughly.

“No.  Of course not.”

“You little liar!  You’re scared half out of your wits.  You’re scared of the whole thing—­scared of the snow, scared of the cold, scared of the dogs, and scared sick of me.  Come, now.  Tell me the truth.”

It was almost her old bluff, bullying tone, but back of it was a disorder of stretched nerves.  Sheila weighed her words and tried to weigh her thoughts.

“I don’t think I am afraid, Miss Blake.  Why should I be afraid of the dogs, if you aren’t?  And why should I be afraid of you?  You have been good to me.  You are a good woman.”

At this Miss Blake threw back her head and laughed.  She was terribly like one of the dogs howling.  There was something wild and wolfish in her broad neck and in the sound she made.  And she snapped back into silence with wolfish suddenness.

“If you’re not scared, then,” she scoffed, “go and chain up the dogs yourself.”

For an instant Sheila quite calmly balanced the danger out of doors against the danger within.

“I think,” she said—­and managed one of her drifting smiles—­“I think I am a great deal more afraid of the dogs than I am of you, Miss Blake.”

The woman studied her for a minute in silence, then she walked over to her elk-horn throne and sat down on it.

She leaned back in a royal way and spread her dark broad hands across the arms.

“Well,” she said coolly, “did you hear what I said?  Go out and chain up the dogs!”

Sheila held herself like a slim little cavalier.  “If I go out,” she said coolly, “I will not take a whip.  I’ll take a gun.”

“And shoot my dogs?”

“Miss Blake, what else is left for us to do?  We can’t let them claw down the door and tear us into bits, can we?”

“You’d shoot my dogs?”

“You said yourself that we might have to shoot them.”

Miss Blake gave her a stealthy and cunning look.  “Take my gun, then”—­her voice rose to a key that was both crafty and triumphant—­“and much good it will do you!  There’s shot enough to kill one if you are a first-rate shot.  I lost what was left of my ammunition the day I hurt my ankle.  The new stuff is down at the post-office by now, I guess.”

The long silence was filled by the shifting of the dog-watch outside the door.

“We must chain them up at any cost,” said Sheila.  Her lips were dry and felt cold to her tongue.

“Go out and do it, then.”  The mistress of the house leaned back and crossed her ankles.

“Miss Blake, be reasonable.  You have a great deal of control over the dogs and I have none.  I am afraid of them and they will know it.  Animals always know when you’re afraid...”  Again she managed a smile.  “I shall begin to think you are a coward,” she said.

At that Miss Blake stood up from her chair.  Her face was red with a violent rush of blood and the sparks in her eyes seemed to have broken into flame.