She half-reeled, and stood leaning against the rough stones of the fireplace. Her head was bowed, and her bosom heaving with emotion. She felt her knees weakening under her, and feared they would no longer support her. But, as her cousin ended, with a laugh, she turned her back to the wall, and stood with her downstretched hands groping against the logs. Then, she saw the evil glint in Tamarack's blood-shot eyes. He took one slow step forward, and held out his arms. "Will ye come ter me?" he commanded, "or shall I come an' git ye?" The girl's fingers at that instant fell against something cooling and metallic. It was Samson's rifle. With a sudden cry of restored confidence and a dangerous up-leaping of light in her eyes, she seized and cocked it. CHAPTER XVI The girl stepped forward, and held the weapon finger on trigger, close to her cousin's chest. "Ye lies, Tam'rack," she said, in a very low and steady voice--a voice that could not be mistaken, a voice relentlessly resolute and purposeful. "Ye lies like ye always lies. Yore heart's black an' dirty. Ye're a murderer an' a coward. Samson's a-comin' back ter me.... I'm a-goin' ter be Samson's wife." The tensity of her earnestness might have told a subtler psychologist than Tamarack that she was endeavoring to convince herself. "He hain't never run away. He's hyar in this room right now." The mountaineer started, and cast an apprehensive glance about him. The girl laughed, with a deeply bitter note, then she went on: "Oh, you can't see him, Tam'rack. Ye mout hunt all night, but wharever I be, Samson's thar, too. I hain't nothin' but a part of Samson--an' I'm mighty nigh ter killin' ye this minute--he'd do hit, I reckon." "Come on now, Sally," urged the man, ingratiatingly. He was thoroughly cowed, seeking compromise. A fool woman with a gun: every one knew it was a dangerous combination, and, except for himself, no South had ever been a coward. He knew a certain glitter in their eyes. He knew it was apt to presage death, and this girl, trembling in her knees but holding that muzzle against his chest so unwaveringly, as steady as granite, had it in her pupils. Her voice held an inexorable monotony suggestive of tolling bells. She was not the Sally he had known before, but a new Sally, acting under a quiet sort of exaltation, capable of anything. He knew that, should she shoot him dead there in her house, no man who knew them both would blame her. His life depended on strategy. "Come on, Sally," he whined, as his face grew ashen. "I didn't aim ter make ye mad. I jest lost my head, an' made love ter ye. Hit hain't no sin ter kiss a feller's own cousin." He was edging toward the door.