ng a short laugh of contempt.

I did not know how much of this was real and how much acting on her
part, although it did seem genuine enough when she could not be looking
for relief. Yet, as she stood there calmly mistress of herself while
Efaw Kotee writhed beneath her scorn, I was reminded of an angler who
had hooked an ungainly fish--she with intellect at one end, he at the
other representing brute strength, fear, cunning; both connected by a
barely visible thread that in this case was not a line, but Fate. For
another moment she let him writhe, then turned and went in.

Jess laughed.

"Shut up, you clown," the old chief turned on him.

"Clown yourself," the captain snarled. "I'll have you know I won't take
any of your lip!"

"Then I back out of our bargain, that's all!"

"If you say that again I'll twist off your palsied head with these two
hands," Jess held them under Efaw Kotee's nose and wriggled his fingers,
until the old man shrank back, cowering. "The men'll follow me when I
tell 'em you play double, an' you know it! You swine, I'm sick of this
place! I'm going to take my share of the stuff, an' the girl, an' clear
out! It's been fifteen years since we raised these cabins--more'n that!
An' what have we got? Plenty of the slickest money ever printed--an' the
other stuff, too--an' you afraid to take a chance. Three times I've
stopped a mutiny for you, an' you'd be dead an' buried if I hadn't. Then
came this last when things went wrong. You say the girl peached, but
'tween you an' me I say you tried to turn State's evidence--don't deny
anything," he held up his hand when the other would have interrupted.
"That's passed now. But I've agreed to forget it, to keep the mutinies
stopped for keeps--by marrying the girl. You agreed, too. Now you talk
of backing out. Is killing too good for you?"

"I don't want to, Jess; I don't, honest," Efaw Kotee said, with a whine.
"But you see yourself how she is! If we rush the place, day or night,
she'll kill herself. Tell me what to do, and I'll do it!"

"You've done about all you can for a while," Jess grumbled, adding: "If
she don't run away."

"Where'd she run to?" the other sneered.

"Well, some kind friend might show her!"

"You're crazy," the chief contemptuously exclaimed.

"Crazy or not, you just see that she doesn't. Then, if starving three
days doesn't bring her, maybe crucifying _you_ head down might do the
trick."

"Wha--what d'you mean?" The old fello