ra rolled her hands in her apron, as if they were cold. His extended
hands she did not seem to see.

"I ain't waitin' for you," she said quietly, her eyes on his. "You
better go right straight along about your business an' leave me to
mine."

"I ain't done right, Tira," said Martin, with the specious warmth she
knew. "I did try to git you in bad with Tenney, but don't you know what
that sprung from? I'm jealous as the devil. Don't you know I be?"

"You've no call to be jealous nor anything else," said Tira steadily.
"You an' me are as fur apart"--she hesitated for a word, and her eyes
rested for a moment on one of the tall evergreens moving slightly in the
breeze. "We couldn't any more come together than I could climb up to the
pick o' that pine tree."

He still regarded her solicitously. He was determined not to abandon his
part.

"Ain't somebody come betwixt us?" he demanded, with that vibration of
the voice once so moving to her. "You can't deny it. Can you now?"

"Nobody's come betwixt us," said Tira. "If you was the only man on this
earth to-day, I'd run from you as I would a snake. I hate you. No, I
don't. I look on you as if you was the dirt under my feet."

But as she said it she glanced down, wistfully troubled, as if she
begged forgiveness of the good earth. The quick anger she knew in him
flared like a licking flame. He threw his arms about her and held her to
him as tightly, it seemed to her, as if he were hostile to the very
breath within her body. And she was still, not only because he gripped
her so but because she had called upon that terrible endurance women
recognize within themselves. He kissed her, angry, insulting kisses she
could bear more patiently than the kisses of unwelcome love. But as his
lips defiled her face, he was suddenly aware that it was wet. Great
tears were rolling down her cheeks. He laughed.

"Cryin'?" he jeered. "Poor little cry-baby! wipe her eyes."

While he held her with one arm, the other hand plunged into her apron
pocket and brought out her handkerchief. It also touched the key. His
instincts, she knew, had a scope of devilish cunning, and at once he
knew what key it was. He laughed. Looking off through the trees, he had
seen what gave him another clue.

"Smoke!" he called, as if he shouted it to an unseen listener who might
not have been clever enough to guess. "Smoke from that shack Raven lazes
round in same as Old Crow did afore him. That's where you were goin'