Far asunder as they
had been yesterday the distance between them to-day was incalculably
greater. She ate as much as she could swallow and pushed the rest
away. Leaving the camp-fire, she began walking again, here and there,
aimlessly, scarcely seeing what she looked at. There was a shadow over
her, an impending portent of catastrophe, a moment standing dark and
sharp out of the age-long hour. She leaned against the balsam and then
she rested in the stone seat, and then she had to walk again. It might
have been long, that time; she never knew how long or short. There came
a strange flagging, sinking of her spirit, accompanied by vibrating,
restless, uncontrollable muscular activity. Her nerves were on the verge
of collapse.

It was then that a call from Kells, clear and ringing, thrilled all the
weakness from her in a flash, and left her limp and cold. She saw him
coming. His face looked amiable again, bright against what seemed a
vague and veiled background. Like a mountaineer he strode. And she
looked into his strange, gray glance to see unmasked the ruthless power,
the leaping devil, the ungovernable passion she had sensed in him.

He grasped her arm and with a single pull swung her to him. "YOU'VE got
to pay that ransom!"

He handled her as if he thought she resisted, but she was unresisting.
She hung her head to hide her eyes. Then he placed an arm round her
shoulders and half led, half dragged her toward the cabin.

Joan saw with startling distinctness the bits of balsam and pine at
her feet and pale pink daisies in the grass, and then the dry withered
boughs. She was in the cabin.

"Girl!... I'm hungry--for you!" he breathed, hoarsely. And turning her
toward him, he embraced her, as if his nature was savage and he had to
use a savage force.

If Joan struggled at all, it was only slightly, when she writhed and
slipped, like a snake, to get her arm under his as it clasped her
neck. Then she let herself go. He crushed her to him. He bent her
backward--tilted her face with hard and eager hand. Like a madman, with
hot working lips, he kissed her. She felt blinded--scorched. But her
purpose was as swift and sure and wonderful as his passion was wild. The
first reach of her groping hand found his gun-belt. Swift as light her
hand slipped down. Her fingers touched the cold gun--grasped with thrill
on thrill--slipped farther down, strong and sure to raise the hammer.
Then with a leaping, strung intensity that