skily, his passion rising as he knotted his huge fists on
the table. "Killed him like you killed the Breed for that long-haired
she-devil over at Copper Cliff!"

"I--don't--know," said David, slowly, praying that he might not say the
wrong thing now. "I don't know what claim you had on her, Brokaw. If I
knew...."

He waited. Brokaw did not seem altogether like a drunken man now, and
for a moment he feared that discovery had come. He leaned over the
table. The watery film seemed to drop from his eyes for an instant and
his teeth gleamed wolfishly. David was glad the lamp chimney was black
with soot, and that the rim of his hat shadowed his face, for it seemed
to him that Brokaw's vision had grown suddenly better.

"I should have killed him, an' took her," repeated Brokaw, his voice
heavy with passion. "I should have had her long ago, but Hauck's woman
kept her from me. She's been mine all along, ever since...." His mind
seemed to lag. He drew his hulking shoulders back slowly. "But I'll
have her to-morrow," he mumbled, as if he had suddenly forgotten David
and was talking to himself. "To-morrow. Next day we'll start north.
Hauck can't say anything now. I've paid him. She's mine--mine
now--to-night! By...."

David shuddered at what he saw in the brute's revolting face. It was the
dawning of a sudden, terrible idea. To-night! It blazed there in his
eyes, grown watery again. Quickly David turned out more liquor, and
thrust one of the cups into Brokaw's hand. The giant drank. His body
sank into piggish laxness. For a moment the danger was past. David knew
that time was precious. He must force his hand.

"And if Hauck troubles you," he cried, striking the table a blow with
his fist, "I'll help you settle for him, Brokaw! I'll do it for old
time's sake. I'll do to him what I did to the Breed. The girl's yours.
She's belonged to you for a long time, eh? Tell me about it,
Brokaw--tell me before Hauck comes!"

Could he never make that bloated fiend tell him what he wanted to know?
Brokaw stared at him stupidly, and then all at once he started, as if
some one had pricked him into consciousness, and a slow grin began to
spread over his face. It was a reminiscent, horrible sort of leer, not a
smile--the expression of a man who gloats over a revolting and
unspeakable thing.

"She's mine--been mine ever since she was a baby," he confided, leaning
again over the table. "Good friend, give her to me, Mac--good friend but
a dam'