"They skipped out between daylight and dark and made as clean a getaway as ever was pulled off. But where she made her big mistake was takin' you along. If it hadn't been for that, he wouldn't a-walked a half mile to bring her back. Twenty-four hours put ten years on him, and he never squeaked. But if he'd caught that freighter he'd took him by the heels and swung him like you'd knock a rabbit's brains out agin a post. "He went over the country with a fine-tooth comb, hopin' to git you back. A couple of times he almost closed in on 'em, but they managed to give him the slip and headed north while mostly he hunted south and west. "You was well growed before I run into 'em. Freighter Sam used to bang her head agin the door jamb about twict a week, and they got along good until he fell for a hasher in an eatin' house and quit Isabelle cold. She hit bottom pretty pronto after that." Mullendore stopped. "But my father, Pete;--tell me more about him!" He eyed her with a quizzical and appraising look before he replied: "You favor the Old Man as much as if you was made out of the mud that was left when they was done workin' on him. Your eyes, your mouth, your chin--the way you walk and stand--the easy style you set a horse. As the sayin' is, 'You're the spit out of his mouth.' God A'mighty! Wouldn't he spile you if you was with him!" "But you don't tell me where he is, Pete!" He ignored the interruption and said with slow malice, watching her face: "I've often thought what a shame it was that you two never got together--a hankerin' for each other so." Something in his tone struck terror to her heart. "But you're going to tell me, Pete? You are! You are!" She crawled closer to the bunk, on her knees. A passionate satisfaction glittered in his eyes. "Yes! it's a plumb pity that you and him never happened to meet up." There was cold cruelty in his tantalizing voice. "You mean--you mean--" she stammered with colorless lips--"that--that you're only tormenting me again--you don't intend--" "That depends." His pupils dilated, his white teeth gleamed. "But you promised, Pete! Haven't you any honor--not a speck?" "I git what I want any way I can git it. That's me--Mullendore." "Tell me what you want! Is it money, Pete?" "Money! Hell! What's money good for to me? Money's only to blow after you've got enough to eat. What do you spose I want? I want you!" "What do you mean?" "Just that." An oath came between his clenched teeth. "I'm stuck on you! I want you so I hate you, if you can understand that--and always have. I'd like to take you off like a dog packs a bone away for himself. I've dealt you and your sheep all the misery I could, because every step you took up was just so far from me. What I've done," savagely, "is nothin' to what I'll do when I git out of this, if you don't say yes." Kate's face, that had gone scarlet, was a grayish white as she got up slowly from her knees. Her breathing was labored as she demanded: