are hittin'
the trail again right away. Sixty thousand dollars! Gee! what a haul!
Say, when I've taken that"--he moved a step nearer and dropped his
voice--"we're goin' to clear out of this--you an' me. Those guys out
there ain't never going to touch a cent. You leave that to me. We'll
hit for New Mexico, and to hell with the north country. Say, Jess,
ain't that fine? Fine?" he went on, with a laugh. "It's fine as you
are."

She had no answer for him. And he went on quite heedlessly, lost in
admiration of his own scheme, and joy at the prospect.

"We'll settle down to an elegant little ranch, most respectable like.
You can go to church. Ha, ha! Yes, you can go to church all reg'lar.
You can make clothes fer the poor, an' go to sociables an' things. An'
meanwhiles I can slip across the border and gather up a few
things--just to keep my hand in--"

"What time are we gettin' out?"

James swung round with the alertness of a panther. One of the men was
standing in the doorway, a burly ruffian whose face was turned to his
leader, but whose cruel eyes were rudely fixed on the woman.

"In ha'f-an-hour," cried James, with a swift return to his harsh
command. "Tell the boys to vittle for three days an' roll a blanket.
We'll need 'em fer sleep. An', say," he cried, with sudden threat,
"don't you git around here again till I call you. Get me?"

There was no mistaking his anger at the interruption. There was no
mistaking his meaning. The man slunk away. But as James turned back to
the woman his previous lightness had gone, and his ill-humor found
savage expression.

"There's someone else needing a lesson besides Conroy," he snarled.

Jessie shivered.

"He didn't mean harm," she protested weakly.

"Harm? Harm? He was staring at you. You ain't fer sech scum as him to
stare at. I'll have to teach him."

The man was lashing himself to that merciless fury Jessie had once
before witnessed, and now she foolishly strove to appease him. She
laughed. It was a forced laugh, but it served her purpose, for the
man's brow cleared instantly, and his thoughts diverted to a full
realization of her presence, and all she meant to him.

"You can laugh," he said, his eyes darkening with sudden lustful
passion. "But I can't have folks--starin' at you. Say, Jess, you don't
know, you can't think, how I feel about you. You're jest mine--mine."
His teeth clipped together with the force of his emotion. The brute in
him urged him as madly in h