“I said I wouldn’t wash them, and I haven’t washed them,” Nora exulted.

“They don’t need it now, I guess,” he said humorously.

“I think I’ve won!”

“Sure,” he said without the slightest trace of rancor.  “Now take the broom and sweep up all the darned mess you’ve made.”

“I won’t!”

“Look here, my girl,” he said threateningly, “I guess I’ve had about enough of your nonsense:  you do as you’re told and look sharp about it.”

“You can kill me, if you like!”

“What would be the good of that?  Women, as you reminded me a little while back, are scarce in Manitoba.”

He gave a searching look around the room and spying the broom in the corner, went over and fetched it.

“Here’s the broom.”

“If you want that mess swept up, you can sweep it up yourself.”

“Look here, you make me tired!”

His tone suggested that he was becoming more irritated.  But Nora was beyond caring.  As he put the broom in her hand, she flung it from her as far as she could.  “Look here,” he said again, and this time there was no mistaking the menace in his voice, “if you don’t clean up that mess at once, I’ll give you the biggest hiding you ever had in your life, I promise you that.”

“You?” she jeered.

“Yours truly,” he said, nodding his head.  “I’ve done with larking now.”  He began rolling up the sleeves of his sweater.  For some obscure reason—­possibly because his deliberation seemed to connote implacability—­this simple action filled her with a terror that she had not known before even in the midst of their physical struggle.

“Help!  Help!  Help!” she screamed.

She rushed across the room and threw open the door, sending her agonized appeal out into the night.

“Help!  Help!  Help!”

She strained her ears for any sign of response.

“What’s the good of that?  There’s no one within a mile of us.  Listen.”

It is doubtful if she heard his words.  If she had, it would have mattered but little.  The answering silence which engulfed her like a wave told her that she was lost.  She bowed her head in her hands.  Her whole slender body was wrecked with hard, dry sobs.  When she lifted her head, he read in her eyes the anguish of the conquered.  Nevertheless, she made one last stand.

“If you so much as touch me, I’ll have you up for cruelty.  There are laws to protect me.”

“I don’t care a curse for the laws,” he laughed.  “I know I’m going to be master here.  And if I tell you to do a thing, you’ve darned well got to do it, because I can make you.  Now stop this fooling.  Pick up that crockery and get the broom.”

“I won’t!”

He made one stride toward her.

“No, don’t.  Don’t hurt me!” she shrieked.

“I guess there’s only one law here,” he said.  “And that’s the law of the strongest.  I don’t know nothing about cities; perhaps men and women are equal there.  But on the prairie, a man’s the master because he’s bigger and stronger than a woman.”