Then later she heard something which caused her very soul to shiver, made her blood run ice--the shrieking scream of a horse in death agony--the hoarser braying of a mule, both dying amid fire! She did not understand it, could not have guessed it; but he had set fire also to the stables. Brutal to the last extreme, he left the animals penned to die in the flames, and laughed at their agony. Again and again the awful sounds came to her. She was hysterical when she heard his footstep approach once more, shrieked aloud for mercy. He mocked her. "Stop it! Cut it out, I say. Come on now--do you want to stay here and burn up in the house?" "I can't see--I'm blind," was all she could manage to say. "Blind, huh?" He laughed now uproariously. "Well, it's a good thing you was blind, or else you might of seen Sim Gage! Did you ever see Sim? What made you come here? What did you come for?" "I'm his housekeeper. He employed me----" "Employed you? For what?--for housekeeping? It looks like it, don't it? Where did you come from, gal?" "East--Ohio--Cleveland," she spoke almost unconsciously and truthfully. "Cleveland? Plenty of our people there too still in the iron works. Cleveland? And how come you out here?" "I'm ill--I'm a blind woman. Can't you leave me alone? Are you any man at all?" He remained unmoved, phlegmatic. "So? Nice talk about you and Sim Gage! Was you two married? I know you ain't. You come out to marry him, though, didn't you?" "Yes." "When?" "Next week--he's gone for the minister to-day." She said anything, the first thing. "That's a lie," said the coarse voice of the man she could not see. "I seen him ten mile down toward the dam, I tell you, with Wid Gardner, and Nels Jensen's folks, below, said they was going for a doctor, not a preacher. He wouldn't marry no blind woman like you, no ways." She sank back, limp, her face in her bloody hands, as she lay against the edge of the bed. "Come now," said he. "We got no time to waste. We'll see what the other fellers think. Housekeeper--huh! You said you wasn't married to him. You never will be, now." "You brute!" she cried, with the courage of the cornered thing, the courage of the prisoner bound to the stake for torture. "You brute!" She could hear him chuckle throatily. "You don't know me--I'm Big Aleck, general of the Soviet brothers in this county." He juggled phrases he never had understood. "You ought to hang!" she panted. "You will hang, some day." [Illustration: "You ought to hang!" said she.] "You better look a little out, gal, I tell you that. You come along out to the camp, and I'll see how you like that!"