But she was a northern girl, trained to self-defense.  As he freed her, her strong, slender arm swung out and up—­with really startling force.  Her half-closed hand struck with a sharp, drawing motion across his lips, a blow that extinguished his laughter as the wind extinguishes a match-blaze.

“You little—­devil!”

The tempest of the forest was upon her, and her eyes blazed as she hastened around the house.

V

Jeffery Neilson and Chan Heminway were already in session when Ray Brent, his face flushed and his eyes still angry and red, joined them.  Neilson was a tall, gaunt man, well past fifty—­from his manner evidently the leader of the three.  He had heavy, grizzled brows and rather quiet eyes, a man of deep passions and great resolve.  Yet his lean face had nothing of the wickedness of Brent’s.  There had evidently been some gentling, redeeming influence in his life, and although it was not in the ascendancy, it had softened his smile and the hard lines about his lips.  Notorious as he was through the northern provinces he was infinitely to be preferred to Chan Heminway, who sat at his left who, a weaker man than either Ray or Neilson, was simply a tool in the latter’s hand,—­a smashing sledge or a cruel blade as his master wished.  He was vicious without strength, brutal without self-control.  Locks of his blond hair, unkempt, dropped over his low forehead into his eyes.

“Where’s Beatrice?” Neilson asked at once.  “I thought I heard her voice.”

Ray searched for a reply, and in the silence all three heard the girl’s tread as she went around the house.  “She’s going in the back door.  Likely she didn’t want to disturb us.”

Ray looked up to find Neilson’s eyes firmly fixed upon his face.  Try hard as he might he couldn’t restrain a surge of color in his cheeks.  “Yes, and what’s the rest of it?” Neilson asked.

“Nothing—­I know of.”

“You’ve got some white marks on your cheeks—­where it ain’t red.  The kid can slap, can’t she—­”

Ray flushed deeper, but the lines of Neilson’s face began to deepen and draw.  Then his voice broke in a great, hearty chuckle.  He had evidently tried to restrain it—­but it got away from him at last.  No man could look at him, his twinkling eyes and his joyous face, and doubt but that this soft-eyed, strong-handed daughter of his was the joy and pride of his life.  He had heard the ringing slap through the ramshackle walls of the house, and for all that he favored Ray as his daughter’s suitor, the independence and spirit behind the action had delighted him to the core.