vil. And then--we can leave this hellish country and go back
in peace--if we don't want to wait for the flood."

Beatrice's eyes were on his face, wondering what growth of wickedness,
what degeneracy had so filled his cruel eyes with light and stamped his
face with evil. This was the man to whom she must look for mercy. Ben's
life, if she led the three men to the cave, would be in his hands. She
sensed from his authoritative tone that her father's control over him
was largely broken. She hovered, terrified and motionless, in her
covert.

Ray reached for his rifle, glancing at the sights and drawing the lever
back far enough to see the brass of its shells. Chan's lean face was
drawn with a cruel glee.

"You can't keep your hands off that gun, Ray," he said. "You sure are
gettin' anxious."

"I won't use it on him," Ray replied, slowly and carefully. "It's too
good for him--except maybe the stock. He didn't lead me clear out here
just to see him puff out and blow up in a minute with a rifle ball
through his head. Just the same I want the gun near me, all the time."

The two men looked at him, sardonic-eyed; and both of them seemed to
understand fully what he meant. They seemed to catch more from the slow
tones, so full of lust and frenzy that they seemed to drop from his
lips in an ugly monotone, than they did from the words themselves. They
took a certain grim amusement in these quirks of abnormal depravity that
had begun to manifest themselves in Ray. The man's fingers were wide
spread as he spoke, and his lip twitched twice, sharply, when he had
finished.

The words came clear and distinct to the listening girl. She tried to
take them literally--that Ray would not shoot Ben! _"It's too good for
him--except maybe the stock!"_ Did he mean _that_ too! Was there any
possible meaning in the world other than that he was planning some
unearthly, more terrible fate for the man she loved! She would not yet
yield to the dreadful truth, yet even now terror was clutching at her
throat, strangling her; and the cold drops were beading her brow. Still
the dark drama of the fireside continued before her eyes.

Chan suddenly turned to Neilson, evidently imbued with Ray's fervor.
"What do you think of that, old man?" he asked menacingly. Thus Chan,
too, had escaped from Neilson's dominance: plainly Ray was his idol now.
It was also plain that he recognized attributes of mercy and decency in
his grizzled leader that might interfer