The Border Legion

"Don't you want to eat?" he asked.

"I'm not hungry," she replied.

"Well, eat anyhow--if it chokes you," he ordered.

Joan seated herself while he placed food and drink before her. She

did not look at him and did not feel his gaze upon her. Far asunder

as they had been yesterday the distance between them to-day was

incalculably greater. She ate as much as she could swallow and

pushed the rest away. Leaving the camp-fire, she began walking

again, here and there, aimlessly, scarcely seeing what she looked

at. There was a shadow over her, an impending portent of

catastrophe, a moment standing dark and sharp out of the age-long

hour. She leaned against the balsam and then she rested in the stone

seat, and then she had to walk again. It might have been long, that

time; she never knew how long or short. There came a strange

flagging, sinking of her spirit, accompanied by vibrating, restless,

uncontrollable muscular activity. Her nerves were on the verge of

collapse.

It was then that a call from Kells, clear and ringing, thrilled all

the weakness from her in a flash, and left her limp and cold. She

saw him coming. His face looked amiable again, bright against what

seemed a vague and veiled background. Like a mountaineer he strode.

And she looked into his strange, gray glance to see unmasked the

ruthless power, the leaping devil, the ungovernable passion she had

sensed in him.

He grasped her arm and with a single pull swung her to him. "YOU'VE

got to pay that ransom!"

He handled her as if he thought she resisted, but she was

unresisting. She hung her head to hide her eyes. Then he placed an

arm round her shoulders and half led, half dragged her toward the

cabin.

Joan saw with startling distinctness the bits of balsam and pine at

her feet and pale pink daisies in the grass, and then the dry

withered boughs. She was in the cabin.

"Girl! ... I'm hungry--for you!" he breathed, hoarsely. And turning

her toward him, he embraced her, as if his nature was savage and he

had to use a savage force.

If Joan struggled at all, it was only slightly, when she writhed and

slipped, like a snake, to get her arm under his as it clasped her

neck. Then she let herself go. He crushed her to him. He bent her

backward--tilted her face with hard and eager hand. Like a madman,

with hot working lips, he kissed her. She felt blinded--scorched.

But her purpose was as swift and sure and wonderful as his passion

was wild. The first reach of her groping hand found his gun-belt.

Swift as light her hand slipped down. Her fingers touched the cold

gun--grasped with thrill on thrill--slipped farther down, strong and

sure to raise the hammer. Then with a leaping, strung intensity that

matched his own she drew the gun. She raised it while her eyes were

shut. She lay passive under his kisses--the devouring kisses of one

whose manhood had been denied the sweetness, the glory, the fire,

the life of woman's lips. It was a moment in which she met his

primitive fury of possession with a woman's primitive fury of

profanation. She pressed the gun against his side and pulled the

trigger.