“Betty—­if I might think—­” he began, but his tongue stumbled.  His love-making was usually of a savage sort, but some quality in the girl held him in check.  The words he had spoken many times before forsook him.  Betty drew away from him, an angry color on her cheeks and an angry light in her eyes.  “Forgive me, Betty!” muttered Murrell, but his heart beat against his ribs, and passion sent its surges through him.  “Don’t you know what I’m trying to tell you?” he whispered.  Betty gathered up her reins.  “Not yet—­” he cried, and again he rested a heavy hand on hers.  “Don’t you know what’s kept me here?  It was to be near you—­only that—­I’ve been waiting for this chance to speak.  It was long in coming, but it’s here now—­and it’s mine!” he exulted.  His eyes burned with a luminous fire, he urged his horse nearer and they came to a halt.  “Look here—­I’ll follow you North—­I swear I love you—­say I may!”

“Let me go—­let me go!” cried Betty indignantly.

“No—­not yet!” he urged his horse still nearer and gathered her close.  “You’ve got to hear me.  I’ve loved you since the first moment I rested my eyes on you—­and, by God, you shall love me in return!” He felt her struggle to free herself from his grasp with a sense of savage triumph.  It was the brute force within him that conquered with women just as it conquered with men.

Bruce Carrington, on his way back to Fayetteville from the Forks, came about a turn in the road.  Betty saw a tall, handsome fellow in the first flush of manhood; Carrington, an angry girl, very beautiful and very indignant, struggling in a man’s grasp.

At sight of the new-comer, Murrell, with an oath, released Betty, who, striking her horse with the whip galloped down the road toward the Barony.  As she fled past Carrington she bent low in her saddle.

“Don’t let him follow me!” she gasped, and Carrington, striding forward, caught Murrell’s horse by the bit.

“Not so fast, you!” he said coolly.  The two men glared at each other for a brief instant.

“Take your hand off my horse!” exclaimed Murrell hoarsely, his mouth hot and dry with a sense of defeat.

“Can’t you see she’d rather be alone?” said Carrington.

“Let go!” roared Murrell, and a murderous light shot from his eyes.

“I don’t know but I should pull you out of that saddle and twist your neck!” said Carrington hotly.  Murrell’s face underwent a swift change.

“You’re a bold fellow to force your way into a lover’s quarrel,” he said quietly.  Carrington’s arm dropped at his side.  Perhaps, after all, it was that.  Murrell thrust his hand into his pocket.  “I always give something to the boy who holds my horse,” he said, and tossed a coin in Carrington’s direction.  “There—­take that for your pains!” he added.  He pulled his horse about and rode back toward the cross-roads at an easy canter.

Carrington, with an angry flush on his sunburnt cheeks, stood staring down at the coin that glinted in the dusty road, but he was seeing the face of the girl, indignant, beautiful—­then he glanced after Murrell.