face. In her heart was a fury.

"I wouldn't be afraid now--not of him alone," she cried. "I would
scream--and fight, and Tara would tear him into pieces. Oh, Tara knows
how to do it--_now_! I have trained him."

"He compelled you to let him take the picture," urged David gently. "And
then...."

"I saw one of the pictures afterward. My aunt had it. I wanted to
destroy it, because I hated it, and I hated him. But she said it was
necessary for her to keep it. She was sick then. I loved her. She would
put her arms around me every day. She used to kiss me, nights, when I
went to bed. But we were afraid of Hauck--I don't call him 'uncle.'
_She_ was afraid of him. Once I jumped at him and scratched his face
when he swore at her, and he pulled my hair. _Ugh_, I can feel it now!
After that she used to cry, and she always put her arms around me
closer than ever. She died that way, holding my head down to her, and
trying to say something. But I couldn't understand. I was crying. That
was six months ago. Since then I've been training Tara--to kill."

"And why have you trained Tara, little girl?"

David took her hand. It lay warm and unresisting in his, a firm, very
little hand. He could feel a slight shudder pass through her.

"I heard--something," she said. "The Nest is a terrible place. Hauck is
terrible. Brokaw is terrible. And Hauck sent away somewhere up
there"--she pointed northward--"for Brokaw. He said--I belonged to
Brokaw. What did he mean?"

She turned so that she could look straight into David's eyes. She was
hard to answer. If she had been a woman....

She saw the slow, gathering tenseness in David's face as he looked for a
moment away from her bewildering eyes--the hardening muscles of his
jaws; and her own hand tightened as it lay in his.

"What did Hauck mean?" she persisted. "Why do I belong to Brokaw--that
great, red brute?"

The hand he had been holding he took between both his palms in a gentle,
comforting way. His voice was gentle, too, but the hard lines did not
leave his face.

"How old are you, Marge?" he asked.

"Seventeen," she said.

"And I am--thirty-eight." He turned to smile at her. "See...." He raised
a hand and took off his hat. "My hair is getting gray!"

She looked up swiftly, and then, so suddenly that it took his breath
away, her fingers were running back through his thick blond hair.

"A little," she said. "But you are not old."

She dropped her hand. Her whole movement had b