he man, the shrieks of the woman, struggling and
calling,--he must have thought that two drunken human beings instead of
one were endeavoring to show the astonished sky how bestial life may be
even here in America in an undone day.

CHAPTER XIII

THE SABCAT CAMP

To Mary Warren's ears, had she struggled in her captor's arms less
violently, the sound of the wheels might have changed from the loam of
the lane to the gravel of the highway as they passed. But she heard
nothing, noted nothing, did not understand why, after a time, the
driver pulled up, and with much profanity for his team, descended from
his seat. Apparently he fastened the horses near the road. He came
back. "Git down, and hurry," said he. "Here's where we change cars."

She heard the grind of a motor's starting crank, the chug of an engine.
As its strident whirring continued her captor came again to her side,
and with rudeness aided her to the seat of what she took to be a small
car. She felt the leap of the car under his rude driving as he turned
the gas on full, felt it sway as it set to its pace. She now knew that
they were on some highway.

"Now we go better," laughed Big Aleck, his face at her ear. "They
can't catch us now. These Johns 'll find what's what, heh? Look
yonder--five fires in sight, besides plenty stock bumped off. They'll
learn how the free brothers work. If you can't see, you can't tell.
All the better!"

She shrank back into the seat, undertaking no reply to his maudlin
boastings. She was passing away from the only place in all the world
that meant shelter for her now, and already it felt like home, this
place that she was leaving.

The car shifted and slowed down, apparently on a less used
thoroughfare. "Where are you going?" she cried. "You've left the
road!"

Big Aleck laughed uproariously after his fashion. "I should say we
have," said he. "But any road's good enough just so it gets us up to
our jungle. You don't know what iss a jungle? Well, it's where the
sabcat brothers meets all by theirselves on the Reserve."

"Reserve?" asked Mary Warren. "What do you mean?"

"Where the timber is that them army scum is cutting for the Government.
Pine, some spruce. This road was made to get timber out. I ought to
know about it--I was foreman of the road gang! I know every tree
that's marked for the Government. My old bunch of bundle stiffs and
before-the-war wobblies is in there now. What chance has