til he stood on his feet, his two big
fists clenched, his yellow teeth snarling at her.

"You damned--spy!" he cried chokingly. "If you was a man--I'd kill you!"

The girl did not shrink. Her face did not whiten. Two bright spots
flamed in her cheeks, and Hawkins saw the triumph shining in her eyes.
And there was a new thing in the odd twist of her red lips, as she said
tauntingly.

"If I was a man, Jed Hawkins--you'd run!"

He took a step toward her.

"You'd run," she repeated, meeting him squarely, and taking a tighter
grip of her stick. "I ain't ever seen you hit anything but a woman, an'
a girl, or some poor animal that didn't dare bite back. You're a coward,
Jed Hawkins, a low-down, sneakin,' whiskey-sellin' coward--and you
oughta die!"

Even Peter sensed the cataclysmic change that had come in this moment
between the two big rocks. It held something in the air, like the
impending crash of dynamite, or the falling down of the world. He forgot
himself, and looked up at his mistress, a wonderful, slim little thing
standing there at last unafraid before the future--and in his dog heart
and soul a part of the truth came to him, and he planted his big feet
squarely in front of Jed Hawkins, and snarled at him as he had never
snarled before in his life.

And the bootlegger, for a moment, was stunned, For a while back he had
humored the girl a little, to hold her in peace and without suspicion
until Mooney was able to turn over her body-money. After that--after he
had delivered her to the other's shack--it would all be up to Mooney, he
figured. And this was what had come of his peace-loving efforts! She was
taking advantage of him, defying him, spying upon him--the brat he had
fed and brought up for ten years! Her beauty as she stood there did not
hold him back. It was punishment she needed, a beating, a hair-pulling,
until there was no breath left in her impudent body. He sprang forward,
and Peter let out a wild yip as he saw Nada raise her stick. But she
was a moment too slow. The man's hand caught it, and his right hand shot
forward and buried itself in the thick, soft mass of her hair.

It was then that something broke loose in Peter. For this day, this
hour, this minute the gods of destiny had given him birth. All things in
the world were blotted out for him except one--the six inches of naked
shank between the bootlegger's trouser-leg and his shoe. He dove in.
His white teeth, sharp as stiletto-points, sank