"You ought to be ashamed of yourself not to be. And you don't even know whom you'll meet before you can lock the front door again. You promised me never to go out without it. Promise me that once more, will you?" She did as he asked her. "Now, give me your hand, please," he went on. "Take hold of this." "What is it?" "The butt of my revolver. Don't be afraid." She heard the slight click of the hammer with a thrill of strange apprehension. "What are you doing?" she demanded hurriedly. "Put your finger on the trigger--so. It is cocked. Now pull." She caught her breath. "What do you mean?" He was holding the gun in his two hands, his fingers overlapping hers, the muzzle at the breast of his jacket. "Pull," he repeated, "that's all you have to do; I'm steadying it." She snatched back her hand. "What do you mean?" she cried. "For me to kill you? Shame!" "You are too excited--all I asked you was to take the trouble to crook your finger--and I'll never speak to you again--you'll have your wish forever." "Shame!" "Why shame?" he retorted. "I mean what I say. If you meant what you said, why don't you put it out of my power ever to speak to you? Do you want me to pull the trigger?" "I told you once I'm not an assassin--how dare you ask me to do such a thing?" she cried furiously. "Call your uncle," he suggested coolly. "You may hold this meantime so you'll know he's in no danger. Take my gun and call your uncle----" "Shame on you!" "Call Gale--call any man in the Gap--they'll jump at the chance." "You are a cold-blooded, brutal wretch--I'm sorry I ever helped you--I'm sorry I ever let you help me--I'm sorry I ever saw you!" She sprang away before he could interpose a word. He stood stunned by the suddenness of her outburst, trying to listen and to breathe at the same time. He heard the front door close, and stood waiting. But no further sound from the house greeted his ears. "And I thought," he muttered to himself, "that might calm her down a little. I'm certainly in wrong, now." CHAPTER XVIII HER BAD PENNY Nan reached her room in a fever of excitement, angry at de Spain, bitterly angry at Gale, angry with the mountains, the world, and resentfully fighting the pillow on which she cried herself to sleep. In the morning every nerve was on edge. When her Uncle Duke, with his chopping utterance, said something short to her at their very early breakfast he was surprised by an answer equally short. Her uncle retorted sharply. A second curt answer greeted his rebuff, and while he stared at her, Nan left the table and the room. Duke, taking two of the men, started that morning for Sleepy Cat with a bunch of cattle. He rode a fractious horse, as he always did, and this time the horse, infuriated as his horses frequently were by his brutal treatment, bolted in a moment unguarded by his master, and flung Duke on his back in a strip of lava rocks.