Victoria knew the ruffian now. A flash of memory carried her back to a day in her childhood when she had seen a horrible apelike figure standing over the prostrate body of a man from which life had just been violently ejected. She saw the same gargoyle face, the same hulking muscle-bound shoulders and long arms with hairy wrists projecting from the coat sleeves. Her memory brought her a second picture of the same incident. A smiling young fellow was lifting her gently from the ground. His hand was caressing her hair softly as he spoke. She recalled even his words. “Run right along into the wagon where yore dad is, li’l girl, an’ don’t turn yore head.” The girl’s arm rested on a shelf, in the same position where it had fallen when she had been hurled back. Her fingers touched something cold. “You first. Yore brother next,” the guttural voice of Dutch went on, and the horrible malice of it seemed unhuman. “I been waitin’ a mighty long time, an’ I gotcha at last. Sure have. Thought I was scared of you an’ that damned high-heeled brother o’ yourn, did you? Me, I was settin’ back an’ waitin’—waitin’ for my chance. An’ it’s come, like I knew it would. Beg. Whine like a papoose. It won’t do you no good, but go to it jest the same. Hear me—before I turn you over an’ crack yore backbone at the neck.” His gloating was horrible. It sent chills through Victoria’s blood. Her fingers spasmodically closed—on the ivory handle of a revolver. The force of the recoil had flung her hand into contact with the revolver Dutch had tossed on the shelf a few hours earlier. “Don’tcha hear me? Beg me to let you go. Crawl over an’ lick my boots. Maybe I’ll go easy on you like you two dern fools done with me.” A jangle of hideous laughter accompanied his words. He kicked his opponent in the side. Hugh looked at him steadily, without a word. “Thought you had the Injun sign on me, eh? Both of you? Well, I’ll say right here there never was a minute I was scared of either one of you—or both. Me, I’m Sam Dutch, a sure enough killer. An’ you—you’re Number Fifteen. Ole Dan Tucker’s come to git his supper, an’ he ain’t too late, neither.” He was working himself up for murder. Soon his passion would be boiling over. Then he would strike. One thought dominated Vicky, drove out all others. She must save Hugh McClintock. She forgot to be afraid, forgot to remember that this scoundrel was the terror of Nevada. Noiselessly she crept forward and pushed the revolver into his back just below the shoulders. “If you move I’ll shoot you,” she said hoarsely. The stream of curses died in the fellow’s throat. His jaw fell. Ludicrously his immature mind groped with the situation. Three slow taps rose from the floor. Dutch gasped. Those taps had always heralded disaster for him. Vicky drew a knife from his boot and a revolver from the belt he was wearing. She dropped them on the floor.