The fact itself did not need his words for emphasis.  He fairly reeked the beast of prey.  She had to nerve herself against faintness.  She must not swoon.  She dared not.

“Think you can threaten to give me up, do you?  ’Fore I’m through with you you’ll wish you had never been born.  You’ll crawl on your knees and beg me to kill you.”

Such a devil of wickedness she had never seen in human eyes before.  The ruthlessness left no room for appeal.  Unless the courage to tame him lay in her she was lost utterly.

He continued his exultant bragging, blatantly, ferociously.

“I didn’t tell you about my escape; how a guard tried to stop me and I put the son of a gun out of business.  There’s a price on my head.  D’ye think I’m the man to give you a chance to squeal on me?  D’ye think I’ll let a pink-and-white chit send me back to be strangled?” he screamed.

The stark courage in her rose to the crisis.  Not an hour before she had seen the Texan cow him.  He was of the kind would take the whip whiningly could she but wield it.  Her scornful eyes fastened on him contemptuously, chiseled into the cur heart of him.

“What will you do?” she demanded, fronting the issue that must sooner or later rise.

The raucous jangle of his laugh failed to disturb the steadiness of her gaze.  To reassure himself of his mastery he began to bluster, to threaten, turning loose such a storm of vile abuse as she had never heard.  He was plainly working his nerve up to the necessary pitch.

In her first terror she had dropped the reins.  Her hands had slipped unconsciously under the lap-robe.  Now one of them touched something chilly on the seat beside her.  She almost gasped her relief.  It was the selfsame revolver with which she had tried to hold up the Texan.

In the midst of Struve’s flood of invective the girl’s hand leaped quickly from the lap-robe.  A cold muzzle pressed against his cheek brought the convict’s outburst to an abrupt close.

“If you move I’ll fire,” she said quietly.

For a long moment their gazes gripped, the deadly clear eyes of the young woman and the furtive ones of the miscreant.  Underneath the robe she felt a stealthy movement, and cried out quickly:  “Hands up!”

With a curse he threw his arms into the air.

“Jump out!  Don’t lower your hands!”

“My ankle,” he whined.

“Jump!”

His leap cleared the wheel and threw him to the ground.  She caught up the whip and slashed wildly at the horses.  They sprang forward in a panic, flying wildly across the open plain.  Margaret heard a revolver bark twice.  After that she was so busy trying to regain control of the team that she could think of nothing else.  The horses were young and full of spirit, so that she had all she could do to keep the trap from being upset.  It wound in and out among the hills, taking perilous places safely to her surprise, and was at last brought to a stop only by the narrowing of a draw into which the animals had bolted.