Part 49 (2/2)

James clattered into the empty sitting-room and stared about him. His dark face was flushed with excitement. The savage in him was stirred to its best mood, but it was still the savage. He grinned as he realized that the room was empty, and it was a grin of amus.e.m.e.nt. Some thought in his mind gave him satisfaction, in spite of the fact that there was no one to greet him.

The grin pa.s.sed and left him serious. Even his excitement had abated.

He had remembered Jessie's scream at the scene she must have witnessed. He remembered that he had left her fainting. With another quick glance round he stood and called--

”Ho, you! Jess!”

There was no answer; and he called again, this time his handsome face darkening. He had seen her from a distance outside the house, so there was no doubt of her being about.

Still he received no answer.

An oath followed. But just as he was about to call again he heard the sound of a skirt beyond the inner door. Instantly he checked his impulse, and where before his swift-rising anger had shone in his eyes a smile now greeted Jessie as she opened the door and entered the room.

For a moment no verbal greeting pa.s.sed between them. The man was taking in every detail of her face and figure, much as a connoisseur may note the points of some precious purchase he is about to make, or a glutton may contemplate a favorite dish. He saw nothing in her face of the effects of the strain through which she had pa.s.sed. To him her eyes were the same wonderful, pa.s.sionate depths that had first drawn his reckless manhood to flout every risk in hunting his quarry down.

Her lips were the same rich, moist, enticing lips he had pressed to his in those past moments of pa.s.sion. The rounded body was unchanged.

Yes, she was very desirable.

But he was too sure of his ground to notice that there was no responsive admiration in the woman's eyes. And perhaps it was as well.

She was looking at him with eyes wide open to what he really was, and all the revolting of her nature was uppermost. She loathed him as she might some venomous reptile. She loathed him and feared him. His body might have been the body of an Apollo, his face the most perfect of G.o.d's creations. She knew him now for the cold-blooded murderer he was, and so she loathed and feared him.

There were stains upon his cotton s.h.i.+rt-sleeves, upon the bosom of it showing between the fronts of his unb.u.t.toned waistcoat. There were stains upon his white moleskin trousers.

”Blood,” she said, pointing. And something of her feelings must have been plain to any but his infatuated ears.

He laughed. It was a cruel laugh.

”Sure,” he cried. ”It was a great sc.r.a.p. We took nigh a hundred head of Sid Morton's cattle and burnt him out.”

”And the blood?”

”Guess it must be his, or--Luke Tedby's.” His face suddenly darkened.

”That mutton-headed gambler over on Suffering Creek did him up. I had to carry him to shelter--after he got away.”

But Jessie paid little attention. She was following up her own thought.

”It isn't--Conroy's?”

James' eyes grew cold.

”That seems to worry you some,” he cried coldly. Then he put the thing aside with a laugh. ”You'll get used to that sort of talk after you've been here awhile. Say, Jes--”

”I can never get used to--murder.”

The woman's eyes were alight with a somber fire. She had no idea of whither her words and feelings were carrying her. All her best feelings were up in arms, and she, too, was touched now with the reckless spirit which drove these people. There was no hope for her future. There was no hope whithersoever she looked. And now that she had seen her children were still safe from the life she had flung herself into, she cared very little what happened to her.

But the cruel despot, to whom life and death were of no account whatsoever, was not likely to deal tenderly long with the woman he desired did she prove anything but amenable. Now her words stung him as they were meant to sting, and his mouth hardened.

”You're talking foolish,” he cried in that coldly metallic way she had heard him use before. ”Conroy got all he needed. Maybe he deserved more. Anyhow, ther's only one man running this lay-out, and I'm surely that man. Say--” again he changed. This time it was a change back to something of the lover she knew, and at once he became even more hateful to her--”things missed fire at--the Creek. I didn't get hands on your kids. I--”

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