Beatrice’s eyes were on his face, wondering what growth of wickedness, what degeneracy had so filled his cruel eyes with light and stamped his face with evil.  This was the man to whom she must look for mercy.  Ben’s life, if she led the three men to the cave, would be in his hands.  She sensed from his authoritative tone that her father’s control over him was largely broken.  She hovered, terrified and motionless, in her covert.

Ray reached for his rifle, glancing at the sights and drawing the lever back far enough to see the brass of its shells.  Chan’s lean face was drawn with a cruel glee.

“You can’t keep your hands off that gun, Ray,” he said.  “You sure are gettin’ anxious.”

“I won’t use it on him,” Ray replied, slowly and carefully.  “It’s too good for him—­except maybe the stock.  He didn’t lead me clear out here just to see him puff out and blow up in a minute with a rifle ball through his head.  Just the same I want the gun near me, all the time.”

The two men looked at him, sardonic-eyed; and both of them seemed to understand fully what he meant.  They seemed to catch more from the slow tones, so full of lust and frenzy that they seemed to drop from his lips in an ugly monotone, than they did from the words themselves.  They took a certain grim amusement in these quirks of abnormal depravity that had begun to manifest themselves in Ray.  The man’s fingers were wide spread as he spoke, and his lip twitched twice, sharply, when he had finished.

The words came clear and distinct to the listening girl.  She tried to take them literally—­that Ray would not shoot Ben! "It’s too good for him—­except maybe the stock!" Did he mean that too!  Was there any possible meaning in the world other than that he was planning some unearthly, more terrible fate for the man she loved!  She would not yet yield to the dreadful truth, yet even now terror was clutching at her throat, strangling her; and the cold drops were beading her brow.  Still the dark drama of the fireside continued before her eyes.

Chan suddenly turned to Neilson, evidently imbued with Ray’s fervor.  “What do you think of that, old man?” he asked menacingly.  Thus Chan, too, had escaped from Neilson’s dominance:  plainly Ray was his idol now.  It was also plain that he recognized attributes of mercy and decency in his grizzled leader that might interfere with his own and his companion’s plans.  “What’s worrying me—­whether you’re goin’ to join in on the sport when we catch the weasel!”

Sport!  The word was more terrible to Beatrice than the vilest oath he had used to emphasize it.  She crouched, shivering.  Watching intently, she saw Ray look up, too, waiting for the reply; and her father, sensing his lost dominance, bowed his head.

“You could hardly expect me to let him off easy—­seeing what he did to my daughter—­”