o you one particle of good to set the police after Jack. So go
ahead and tell, and be just as treacherous and mean as you like. You
won't have the pleasure of sending him to jail--because they'll never
catch him. My heavens, how I despise and loathe you two!"

While she spat venom at them she was stamping her feet into her
overshoes, buttoning her sweater, snatching up this thing and that
thing she wanted, drawing a woolly Tarn O'Shanter cap down over her
ears, hooking a cheap fur neckpiece that she had to tug and twist
because it fitted so tightly over her sweater collar. She took her
six-shooter--she was still deadly afraid of Hank Brown--and she got
her muff that matched the neck fur. Her eyes blazed whenever she
looked at them.

"Marion, listen to reason! You _can't_ go out in this storm!" Kate
began to whimper.

"Will you please shut up?" Marion whirled on her, primitive, fighting
rage contorting her face. "I can go anywhere I like. I only wish I
could go where I'd never see you again." She went out and pulled the
door violently shut. Stood a minute to brace herself for what she had
to do, and went into the storm as a swimmer breasts the breakers.

After her went Mike, scuttling away from his cabin with his rifle
swinging from his right hand, his left fumbling the buttons on his
coat.

At the fence corner Marion hesitated, standing with her back to the
wind, the snow driving past her with that faint hiss of clashing
particles which is the voice of a sleeting blizzard. She could take
the old, abandoned road which led up over the ridge topped by Taylor
Rock, and she would find the walking easier, perhaps. But the road
followed the line of least resistance through the hills, and that line
was by no means straight. Jack would probably be in the cave, out of
the storm; she had no hope of meeting him over on the slope on such a
day. Still, he might start down the mountain, and at any rate it would
be the shortest way up there. She turned down along the fence,
following the trail as she had done before, with Mike coming after her
as though he was stalking game: warily, swiftly, his face set and
eager, his eyes shining with the hunting lust.

Up the hill she went, bracing herself against the wind where it swept
through open spaces, shivering with the cold of it, fearful of the
great roaring overhead where the pinetops swayed drunkenly with
clashing branches: Dead limbs broke and came crashing down, bringing
showers