She made no reply, though her blood tingled, and though her hand, with a will of its own, must be held back from striking him across the face again. She brought him his coffee and thereafter food which he called for from among the tins. "What do you think has happened to your gentleman friend?" he mocked her. And when she refused to reply, he told her: "He's gone on ... where? After Taggart? To get a rifle and come back? Planning to hide behind a tree and pop me off while I'm not looking? That would make a hit with you, wouldn't it? Like your own best game of shooting a man in the back! Or has he forgotten a pair of bright eyes and warm arms and red lips? And is he content to trail Mexicali, spying on him, trying to get in on the new gold diggings? Which, girl?" "He hates you!... with cause. And he is no coward; he is as good a man, if less brute, as you, Bruce Standing!..." When he spoke finally it was to say: "We're going to be short on provisions for a day or so, girl. Hungry?" Here was her first, altogether too vague clew to his intentions. Quickly she asked: "Where are we going?" "I to keep an engagement; you to accompany me." He supposed that he had told her nothing. And yet she, quick-witted, having never let slip from her mind a certain suspicion when Mexicali Joe had too readily succumbed to Taggart, cried out: "To a meeting with Mexicali Joe!" "What makes you think that?" he asked sharply. She pretended to laugh at him. He ate in silence; drank his coffee; thereafter, stuffing a pipe full of crude black tobacco, smoked thoughtfully. All the while the fire burned lower and the darkness, ringing them around, drew closer in. She had been on the alert, while looking to be hopelessly bowed where she sat. Suddenly he was at her side, his grip like a steel bracelet about her wrist. "About ready to jump and run for it?" he taunted her. "Not to-night, my girl; and not to-morrow night nor yet for many a day to come. I've got my own plans for you." "Are you going to take me back to Big Pine? To hand me over to the law, with a charge of attempted murder against me?" "I am going to take you with me on into the wilderness. Into a country which is absolutely the kingdom of Bruce Standing. Haven't I told you that I have my own plans for you? I can hand you over to the cheap degradation of a trial and conviction and jail sentence whenever I am ready for it...." "You can't keep me from killing myself...." "But I can! I am master here, understand? And you.... By heaven, you are nothing but my slave so long as I tolerate you!... Look here, what I brought for you!... For I knew I'd find you!"