looking up at him with a face of seductive appeal.

"Don't go yet. Please!"

The triumph of victory mounted to his head. "I'll come back when I've
done what I've got to do."

"No, no. Stay a little longer just a little."

"Not a minute, sweetheart."

He bent to kiss her, and a little clenched fist struck his face.

"Don't you dare!" she cried.

The outraged woman in her, curbed all evening with an iron bit, escaped
from control. Delightedly he laughed. The hot spirit in her pleased him
mightily. He took her little hands and held them in one of his while he
smiled down at her. "I guess that kiss will keep, my girl, till I come
back."

"My God! Are you going to kill your own cousin?"

All her terror, all her detestation and hatred of him, looked haggardly
out of her unmasked face. His narrowed eyes searched her heart, and his
countenance grew every second more sinister,

"Y'u have been fooling me all evening, then?"

"Yes, and hating you every minute of the time."

"Y'u dared?" His face was black with rage.

"You would like to kill me. Why don't you?"

"Because I know a better revenge. I'm going out to take it now. After
your lover is dead, I'll come back and make love to y'u again," he
sneered.

"Never!" She stood before him like a queen in her lissom, brave, defiant
youth. "And as for your cousin, you may kill him, but you can't destroy
his contempt for you. He will die despising you for a coward and a
scoundrel."

It was true, and he knew it. In his heart he cursed her, while he vainly
sought some weapon that would strike home through her impervious armor.

"Y'u love him. I'll remember that when I see him kick," he taunted.

"I make you a present of the information. I love him, and I despise you.
Nothing can change those facts," she retorted whitely.

"Mebbe, but some day y'u'll crawl on your knees to beg my pardon for
having told me so."

"There is your overweening vanity again," she commented.

"I'm going to break y'u, my beauty, so that y'u'll come running when I
snap my fingers."

"We'll see."

"And in the meantime I'll go hang your lover." He bowed ironically,
swung on his jingling heel, and strode out of the room.

She stood there listening to his dying footfalls, then covered her
face with her hands, as if to press back the dreadful vision her mind
conjured.

CHAPTER 19. WEST POINT TO THE RESCUE

It was understood that the sheriff should make a perfunctory defense
against t