"It's shameful for you to act in this way, Gale." She spoke low and rapidly to her enraged suitor. De Spain alone knew it was to keep her humiliation from his own ears, and he made no effort to follow her quick, pleading words. The moment was most embarrassing for two of the three involved. But nothing that Nan could say would win from her cousin any reprieve. "When you came back from school I told Duke I was going to marry you. He said, all right," persisted her cousin stubbornly. "Gale Morgan, what Uncle Duke said, or didn't say, has nothing whatever to do with _my_ consent." "I told you I was going to marry you." "Does that bind me to get married, when I don't want to?" "You said you'd marry me." Nan exploded: "I never, never said so in this world." Her voice shook with indignation. "You know that's a downright falsehood." "You said you didn't care for anybody else," he fairly bellowed. "Now I want to know whether you'll marry me if I take you over to Sleepy Cat to-morrow?" "No!" Nan flung out her answer, reckless of consequence. "I'll never marry you. Let me go home." "You'll go home when I get through with you. You've fooled me long enough." Her blood froze at the look in his face. "How dare you!" she gasped. "Get out of my way!" "You damned little vixen!" He sprang forward and caught her by the wrist. "I'll take the kinks out of you. You wouldn't marry me your way, now you'll marry me mine." She fought like a tigress. He dragged her struggling into his arms. But above her half-stifled cries and his grunting laugh, Morgan heard a sharp voice: "Take your hands off that girl!" Whirling, with Nan in his savage arms, the half-drunken mountaineer saw de Spain ten feet away, his right hand resting on the grip of his revolver. Stunned, but sobered by mortal danger, Morgan greeted his enemy with an oath. "Stand away from that girl!" repeated de Spain harshly, backing the words with a step forward. Morgan's grasp relaxed. Nan, jerking away, looked at de Spain and instantly stepped in front of her cousin, on whom de Spain seemed about to draw. "What are you doing here?" demanded Morgan, with an enraged oath. "I left some business with you the other day at Calabasas half finished," said de Spain. "I'm here this afternoon to clean it up. Get away from that girl!" His manner frightened even Nan. The quick step to the side and back--poising himself like a fencer--his revolver restrained a moment in its sheath by an eager right arm, as if at any instant it might leap into deadly play. Shocked with new fear, Nan hesitated. If it was play, it was too realistic for the nerves even of a mountain girl. De Spain's angry face and burning eyes photographed themselves on her memory from that moment. But whatever he meant, she had her part to do. She backed, with arms spread low at her sides, directly against her cousin. "You shan't fight," she cried at de Spain. "Stand away from that man!" retorted de Spain sternly.