faced, loud-voiced fury of a man who has
lost his self-control, he shouted:

"I want you to get out! To quit! To leave this town! Twenty-four hours
I'll give you to get your traps together. Do you hear? If you don't, so
help me God, I'll put you where you belong! Don't speak," he raised his
hand as though to forestall her, "lest I forget your sex." He went on,
inarticulate with passion: "I've protected you as long as I can--as long
as I'm going to. Do you understand? I'm done. I've got some little
self-respect left; not much, but enough to see me through this. And you
can tell Augusta Symes that if she wants to go, every door is open wide!
Tell her--tell her that for me!"

He stopped, choked with the violence of his feelings, and in the pause
which followed she sat looking up at him unmoved. The shock seemed to
quiet her. Then, too, it was so like another scene indelibly engraved
upon her memory that she wanted to laugh--actually to laugh. Yet Symes's
violence cut her less than had the cool, impersonal voice of the coroner
back there in that little Nebraska town. She found his blazing eyes far
easier to meet than the cold unfriendliness in the gaze of the man who
had delivered that other ultimatum. Perhaps it was because she believed
she had less to fear. Symes dared not--_dared_ not, she told
herself--enforce his threats.

Symes read something of this thought in her face and it maddened him.
Was it not possible to make her comprehend? Was she really so callous,
so thick-skinned that she was immune from insult? His hand dropped once
more upon her shoulder.

"I'm ruined--do you understand?" He shook her. "I'm down and out. I'm
broke; and so is Crowheart!" She winced under his tightening grip. "The
smash was due when Van Lennop said the word. He's said it." He felt her
start at the name and there was something like fear in her face at last.
"Van Lennop," he reiterated, "Van Lennop that you've made my enemy to
gratify your personal spite and jealousy." He continued through clenched
teeth:

"From the beginning you've used me to further your petty ends. It's
plain enough to me now, for, with all your fancied cleverness, you're
transparent as a window-pane when one understands your character. You've
silenced me, I admit it, and blackmailed me through my pride and
ambition, but you've reached the limit. You can't do it any more. I've
none left.

"You expect to cling to my coat-tails to keep yourself up. You look to
my