The sudden flare and flash of her anger breaking, like lightning out of a Winter’s sky, checked his words. The contempt of his smile gave place to a grin of admiration. Tottering and wavering on his feet, he did not stir or raise his arms, though the thin-bladed knife which seemed to spring into her hands as claws protrude from a maddened cat’s paws, slipped through his mackinaw and pricked the skin above his heart, before her hand stopped. “‘Trull’ am I? The daughter of MacGregor Roy is a helpless squaw who takes kindly to such words from any man on the trail? Blood o’ my father! Pray, you cowardly skulker! Pray!” His grin grew broader. “Pretty, very pretty!” he drawled. “But you can’t make it good, can you? You thought you could. Your little flare of temper made you feel big. You were sure you were going to stick me. But you couldn’t do it. You’re a woman. See; your flash of bigness is dying out. You’re growing tame. That’s one of my specialties—taming spitfires like you. Oh, you needn’t draw back. Have no fear. I never did have any taste for red hair.” A painter would have raved about the daughter of MacGregor Roy as she now stood back, facing her tormentor. The fair skin of her face was flushed red, the thin sharp lines of mouth and nostril were tremulous with rage, and her wide, grey eyes burned. Her head was thrown back in scorn, her cap was off; the glorious red-golden hair of her head seemed alive with fury. With one foot advanced, the knife held behind her, her breath coming in angry gasps, she stood, a figure passionately, terribly alive in the dead waste of the snows. “Oh, what a coward you are!” she panted. “You knew I couldn’t avenge myself on a sick man. You coward!” Reivers laughed drunkenly. The fever was blurring his sight, dulling his brain and filling him with an irresistible desire to lie down. “Yes, I knew it,” he mumbled. “I saw it in your eye. You couldn’t do it—because I didn’t want you to. I want you—I want you to fix me up—hole in the shoulder—fever—understand?” “I understand that when Duncan Roy, my father’s brother, catches up with us he will save me the trouble by putting a hole through your head.” “Plenty of time for that later on.” Reivers fought off the stupor and held his senses clear for a moment. “Have you got my whisky?” “And what if I have?” “Answer me!” he said icily. “Have you?” “Duncan Roy has whisky,” she replied reluctantly. “He will be on our trail now.” “How long—how long before he’ll get here?” “Yon beast—” she nodded her head toward the still figure in the snow—“raided our camp, struck me down and stole me away with my team two hours before sundown, yestere’en. Duncan Roy was out meat-hunting, and would be back by dark. He’ll be two hours behind us, and his dogs travel even with these.” “Two hours? Too long,” groaned Reivers and pitched headlong into the snow. CHAPTER XXIV—THE WOMAN’S WAY