"Suppose I were fool enough to refuse what you ask?" "Then you'd go to jail as sure as hell! It's you or him! And I guess I know the answer." Then Lynette said hurriedly: "Step back ... a little farther from the cabin. Let me make sure that he is asleep! There never was a man like him.... Back a few steps and wait...." "There's no sense in that!" "If you don't I'll scream out that you're here! Then you'll never take him; you know the man he is!" Taggart mistrusted, and yet, hard-driven and urged by her voice, obeyed to the extent of drawing back a few steps. Not far, yet far enough for Lynette to stoop and grope and find the rifle. She caught it up and whirled and ran, ran as for her life, back to the cabin door. And she threw the rifle inside, crying out: "Wake up, Bruce Standing! There's your rifle ... and here's Jim Taggart outside, looking for you!" She came bursting into the cabin and full into Bruce Standing's arms. For he was up on his feet, both arms, despite a sore side, lifted. "By God!" he shouted. He let her go and sought the rifle. She was first to find it and put it into his searching hand. "He is a contemptible coward!" she cried. "As if...." Standing had the rifle now, and thrust by her and rushed into the open doorway, Thor snarling at his side; and Standing's voice, lifted mightily, shouted: "Come ahead, Taggart! I'm waiting and ready for you! Come ahead!" Later he laughed at himself for that, and thereafter explained his laughter to Lynette, saying: "He hasn't a gun on him! I cleaned him out, all but one pocket gun, and I fancy he emptied that at me ... in the back. Come--we'll have a fire!" Hastily she shut the door, lest Taggart might have one shot left. Standing set his rifle down against the wall; she heard the thud of the stock upon the floor. Clearly he had no fear of Taggart's return. He began gathering up bits of wood, kneeling to get a fire started. Presently under his hands the blaze leaped up and brought detail vividly blossoming from the dark of the room; his face, white, with the most eager, shining eyes she had ever seen; her own face scarcely less pale; the homely appointments of the place. He was still on his knees at the fireplace; he threw on the last bit of wood and watched the quick flames lick at it; he swerved about, and it seemed that his eyes, no less than the inflammable wood, had caught fire as he cried out in a voice which startled her and in words which set her wondering: "I told you, girl, I'd let you go scot-free ... _unless_! And here I bogged down like a broken-legged steer in the quicksands! But now ... _Now_! I've got it all figured out. I don't let you go! Neither to-night ..." and he was on his feet, towering over her--"or ever!" And, as quick as thought, he was at the door and had shot a bolt home and had clicked a padlock, and, swinging about again, stood looking down at her, his eyes filled with dancing lights. CHAPTER XIX