the other thing. His arms closed crushingly about her. Her slim body
seemed to become a part of him. Her hot lips reached up and clung to
his.

And then,

"Did--he get you--to--Mooney's shack--" He felt her body stiffen against
him.

"No," she panted. "I fought--every inch. He dragged me, and hit me, and
tore my clothes--but I fought. And up there--in the trail--he turned
his back for a moment, when he thought I was done, and I hit him with a
club. And he's there, now, on his back--"

She did not finish. Jolly Roger thrust her out from him, arm's length. A
cloud under the moon hid his face. But his voice was low, and terrible.

"Nada, go to the Missioner's as fast as you can," he said, fighting to
speak coolly. "Take Peter--and go. You will make it before the storm
breaks. I am going back to have a few words with Jed Hawkins--alone.
Then I will join you, and the Missioner will marry us--"

The cloud was gone, and he saw joy and radiance in her face. Fear had
disappeared. Her eyes were luminous with the golden glow of the night.
Her red lips were parted, entreating him with the lure of their purity
and love, and for a moment he held her close in his arms again, kissing
her as he might have kissed an angel, while her little hands stroked his
face, and she laughed softly and strangely in her happiness--the wonder
of a woman's soul rising swiftly out of the sweetness of her girlhood.

And then Jolly Roger set her firmly in the direction she was to go.

"Hurry, little girl," he said. "Hurry--before the storm breaks!"

She went, calling Peter softly, and Jolly Roger strode down the trail,
not once looking back, and bent only upon the vengeance he would this
night wreak upon the two lowest brutes in creation. Never before had he
felt the desire to kill. But he felt that desire now. Before the night
was much older he would do unto Hawkins and Mooney as Hawkins had done
unto Peter. He would leave them alive, but broken and crippled and
forever punished.

And then he stumbled over something in another darkening of the moon. He
stopped, and the light came again, and he looked down into the upturned
face of Jed Hawkins. It was a distorted and twisted face, and its one
eye was closed. The body did not move. And close to the head was the
club which Nada had used.

Jolly Roger laughed grimly. Fate was kind to him in making a half of his
work so easy. But he wanted Hawkins to rouse himself first. Roughly he
stirred him wi