"The last seen of her, she was going up a hill with Dave. When Dave returns you can ask him." The bearded man opposite from Simon uttered a short syllable of a laugh. "And it don't look like he's going to return," he said. The knowing look on his face was deeply abhorrent to Bruce. Curiously, Simon's face flushed, and he whirled in his chair. "Do you mean anything in particular, Old Bill?" he demanded. "It looks to me like maybe Dave's forgot a lot of things you told him, and he and Linda are havin' a little sparkin' time together out in the brush." The idea seemed to please the clan. But Simon's eyes glowed, and Bruce himself felt the beginnings of a blind rage that might, unless he held hard upon it, hurl him against their remorseless weapons. "I don't want any more such talk out of you, Old Bill," Simon reproved him, "and we've talked enough, anyway." His keen eyes studied Bruce's flushed face. "One of you give our guest a chair and fix him up in it with a thong. We don't want him flying off the coop and getting shot until we're done talking to him." One of the clansmen pushed a chair forward with sudden force, striking Bruce in the knees and almost knocking him over. The circle leered, and he sat down in it with as much ease as possible. Then one of the men looped his arms to the arms of the chair with thongs of buckskin. Another thong was tied about his ankles. Then the clansmen went back to their chairs. "I really don't see the use of all these dramatics," Bruce said coldly. "And I don't particularly like veiled threats. At present I seem to be in your hands." "You don't seem to be," Simon answered with reddening eyes. "You are." "I have no intention of saying I'm sorry I didn't heed the threats you gave me before--and as to those I've heard to-night--they're not going to do you any good, either. It is true that you found me in the house you occupy in the dead of night--but it isn't your house to start with. What a man seizes by murder isn't his." "What a man holds with a hard fist and his rifle--in these mountains--_is_ his," Simon contradicted him. "Besides, you got me here with a trick," Bruce went on without heeding him. "So don't pretend that any wickedness you do to-night was justified by my coming. You'll have to answer for it just the same." Simon leaned forward in his chair. His dark eyes glowed in the lamplight. "I've heard such talk as that before," he said. "I expect your own father talked like that a few times himself." The words seemed to strike straight home to the gathered Turners. The moment was breathless, weighted with suspense. All of them seemed straining in their chairs. Bruce's head bowed, but the veins stood out beneath the short hair on his temples, and his lips trembled when he answered. "That was a greater wickedness than anything--_anything_ you can do to-night. And you'll have to answer for it all the more."