ot think of this man and this woman
any more!"

"You can go, and be damned to you!" said Mabyn sullenly. "I stay on my
own place!"

Garth understood then, that she drew very close to the man, lavish in
the expression of her sad love and timid caresses, in a desperate effort
to move him. He could not hear it all; but his cheeks burned to be the
intruder on such an exposure of a woman's soul--a white soul, he
thought, whatever the colour of her skin.

Mabyn was utterly insensible to it all. In the end he became impatient,
and flung her away from him with an oath. She fell to the ground with a
soft thud; and for a while there was no other sound, but the dreadful,
low catch of her breath, as she sought to strangle her sobs.

"'Erbe't, if you no love me I die," she breathed.

"Rid me of this man and I'll love you fast enough!" said Mabyn eagerly.
His breath came thick and stertorous. "Ah! Let me once grind my heel in
the smooth, sneering face of him! and you shall do what you like with
me!" Rage robbed him of speech; he made mere brutish sounds in his
throat.

By and by he managed to control himself; and his voice resumed its
crafty, wheedling tone. "Only do what I tell you, my Rina, and you shall
know what it is to be loved by a white man. I shall have no thought all
day, but of you! Up to now you have done all the loving; I will repay it
twice over! You shall be loved as no red woman was ever loved before!"

"'Erbe't! 'Erbe't! Don't mak' me do it!" she whispered terror-stricken.

Garth could stand no more. Springing to his feet, he strode forward,
grasping the barrel of his rifle to use it for a club. Shooting was too
merciful for such a creature.

"You damned scoundrel!" he cried.

Mabyn fell back against the wall with a gasping cry of fright. Quick as
Garth was, Rina was quicker. Before he could reach the man, she
scrambled over the ground, and clutched him by the knees.

"Let him be!" she screamed. "I kill you!"

Garth struggled vainly to free himself. Finally bending over and seizing
her shoulders, he thrust her away. But the blow he again aimed at Mabyn
never descended; for with incredible swiftness Rina gained her feet, and
darted down hill.

"I kill _her!_" she shrilled.

A sickening fear gripped Garth's heart, instantly obliterating all
thought of Mabyn. He dashed after Rina, nerved to a desperate fleetness.
She knew the ground better than he; and hampered, moreover, by the
weight of his gun, he d