“There!  Take it!  Take it!  Oh....”

She shuddered away from him, her face went white again, she grew cold with the fear upon her.  Just then she cared infinitely little for the sheaf of banknotes in the yellow envelope which the banker had given to her.  She jerked the parcel out from her dress and tossed it to him, her fingers fumbling with the button of the thin garment under which her heart was beating wildly.  And the little “toy pistol” she could have hurled from her, too.  Against this physical bigness, against this insolent bravado and this swift sureness of eye and muscle, she knew the small weapon to be a ridiculous and utterly insufficient plaything.

He caught the envelope and thumbed it, tore off an end and glanced swiftly at the contents and then stowed it away inside his grey flannel shirt.  Again his eyes came back to her.

“I’m in a hurry,” he said swiftly.  “But there’s always time for a girl like you!”

She had foreseen how it would be.  Now that she struggled to draw her tiny revolver and fire he was upon her, his long arms about her, his muscular strength making her own as nothing.  And though he was breathing more quickly still he had his quiet insolent laugh for still further insult.  Though she sought to strike at him he held her in utter helplessness.  Slowly he lifted her face, a big hand under her chin.  The lamp was close by; he blew down the chimney and save for the moonlight across the threshold it was dark in the cabin.  With his other hand he lifted his crude mask from the lower part of his face.  She sought again to strike, to batter his lips.  But her heart sank as the relentless rigidity of his embrace baffled her attempt.  He brought his face closer to hers, slowly closer until at last she knew the outrage of a violent kiss....

From outside came a little sound, not to be catalogued.  It might have been only a dead twig snapping under the talons of a night bird alighting in the big oak tree.  But suddenly the arms about her relaxed, the man whirled and sprang back, whipped open the door and silently was gone into the outer night.

Moaning, swaying, dizzy and sick, she crouched in a far corner.  Then she ran to the door and looked out.  There was nothing moving to be seen anywhere.  Just the white moonlight here, the black patches of shadow there, the sombre wall of the forest land a few yards away.  Her nausea of dread, her uncertainty, had passed.  With never a glance behind her she ran down toward the barn.  She knew that she would be afraid to go into the black maw of the silent building for her horse and yet she knew that she must, that she must mount and ride....  She had never until now known the terror of being alone, utterly alone in the night and the wilderness.

Suddenly she stopped to stare incredulously.  About a corner of the barn, coming out into the bright moonlight, leading his own horse and her own, was Buck Thornton.  She was so certain that he had gone!  For the instant she could not move but stood powerless to lift a hand, rooted to the spot.  She noted that his face was unhidden now, his black hat pushed far back on his head, while from his hip pocket trailed the end of a handkerchief which may and may not have had slits let in it for his eyes to peer through.