she cried, her voice like a man's. "Get out
of my way," replied Duane. His look perhaps, without speech, was enough
for her. In an instant she was transformed into a fury.

"You hound! All the time you were fooling me! You made love to me! You
let me believe--you swore you loved me! Now I see what was queer about
you. All for that girl! But you can't have her. You'll never leave here
alive. Give me that girl! Let me--get at her! She'll never win any more
men in this camp."

She was a powerful woman, and it took all Duane's strength to ward off
her onslaughts. She clawed at Jennie over his upheld arm. Every second
her fury increased.

"HELP! HELP! HELP!" she shrieked, in a voice that must have penetrated
to the remotest cabin in the valley.

"Let go! Let go!" cried Duane, low and sharp. He still held his gun in
his right hand, and it began to be hard for him to ward the woman off.
His coolness had gone with her shriek for help. "Let go!" he repeated,
and he shoved her fiercely.

Suddenly she snatched a rifle off the wall and backed away, her strong
hands fumbling at the lever. As she jerked it down, throwing a shell
into the chamber and cocking the weapon, Duane leaped upon her. He
struck up the rifle as it went off, the powder burning his face.

"Jennie, run out! Get on a horse!" he said.

Jennie flashed out of the door.

With an iron grasp Duane held to the rifle-barrel. He had grasped it
with his left hand, and he gave such a pull that he swung the crazed
woman off the floor. But he could not loose her grip. She was as strong
as he.

"Kate! Let go!"

He tried to intimidate her. She did not see his gun thrust in her face,
or reason had given way to such an extent to passion that she did not
care. She cursed. Her husband had used the same curses, and from her
lips they seemed strange, unsexed, more deadly. Like a tigress she
fought him; her face no longer resembled a woman's. The evil of that
outlaw life, the wildness and rage, the meaning to kill, was even in
such a moment terribly impressed upon Duane.

He heard a cry from outside--a man's cry, hoarse and alarming.

It made him think of loss of time. This demon of a woman might yet block
his plan.

"Let go!" he whispered, and felt his lips stiff. In the grimness of that
instant he relaxed his hold on the rifle-barrel.

With sudden, redoubled, irresistible strength she wrenched the rifle
down and discharged it. Duane felt a blow--a shock--a burning ag