“Should you find yourself in danger from your enemies—­or, your friends”—­he shot a swift glance toward Lapierre, who had remained a pace behind the girl—­“send for me.  Good day.”

Chloe Elliston was furious.  She had listened in a sort of dumb rage as the man’s words stung, and stung again.  MacNair’s uncouth manner, his blunt brutality of speech, his scornful, even contemptuous reference to her work, and, most of all, his utter disregard of her, struck her to the very depths.  As MacNair turned to go, she stayed him with a voice trembling with fury.

“Do you imagine, for an instant, I would stoop to seek your protection?  I would die first!  You have had things your own way too long, Mr. Brute MacNair!  You think yourself secure, in your smug egotism.  But the end is in sight.  Your petty despotism is doomed.  You have hoodwinked the authorities, bribed the police, connived with the Hudson Bay Company, bullied and browbeaten the Indians, cheated them out of their birthright of land and liberty, and have forced them into a peonage that has filled your pockets with gold.”

She paused in her vehement outburst and glared defiantly at MacNair, as if to challenge a denial.  But the man remained silent, and Chloe felt her face flush as the shadow of a twinkle played for a fleeting instant in the depths of the hard eyes.  She fancied, even, that the lips behind the black beard smiled—­ever so slightly,

“Oh, you needn’t laugh!  You think because I’m a woman you will be able to do as you please with me——­”

“I did not laugh,” answered the man gravely.  “Why should I laugh?  You take yourself seriously.  You believe, even, that the things you have just spoken are true.  They must be true.  Has not Pierre Lapierre told you they are true?  And, why should the fact that you are a woman cause me to believe I could influence you?  If an issue is at stake, as you believe, what has sex to do with it?  I have known no women, except the squaws and the kloochmen of the natives.

“You said, ’you think, because I am a woman, you will be able to do as you please with me.’  Are women, then, less honest than men?  I do not believe that.  In my life I have known no women, but I have read of them in books.  I have not been to any school, but was taught by my father, who, I think, was a very wise man.  I learned from him, and from the books, of which he left a great number.  I have always believed women to be uncommonly like men—­very good, or very bad, or very commonplace because they were afraid to be either.  But, I have not read that they are less honest than men.”

“Thank you!  Being a woman, I suppose I should consider myself flattered.  A year from this time you will know more about women—–­at least, about me.  You will have learned that I will not be hoodwinked.  I cannot be bribed.  Nor can my silence, or acquiescence in your villainy be bought.  I will not connive with you.  And you cannot browbeat, nor bully, nor cheat me.”