ed his forehead between her
hands, kissed his brow as if he were her son. A great hot tear
splashed down upon his cheek as she rose again, a sob in her throat
that ended in a little, moaning cry. She tossed her long arms like an
eagle set free from a cramping cage, her head thrown back, her
streaming hair far down her shoulders. There was an appealing grace in
her tall, spare body, a strange, awakening beauty in her haggard
face.

"God sent you," she said. "May He keep His hand over you wherever you
go."

Mackenzie got to his feet; she picked up the ax and leaned it against
the table close to her hand.

"I will give you eggs, you can cook them at a fire," she said, "and
bread I will give you, but butter I cannot give. That I have not
tasted since I came to this land, four years ago, a bride."

She moved about to get the food, walking with awkwardness on the foot
that had dragged the chain so long, laughing a little at her efforts
to regain a normal balance.

"Soon it will pass away, and I will walk like a lady, as I once knew
how."

"But I don't want to cook at a fire," Mackenzie protested; "I want you
to make me some coffee and fry me some eggs, and then we'll see about
things."

She came close to him, her great gray eyes seeming to draw him until
he gazed into her soul.

"No; you must go," she said. "It will be better when Swan comes that
nobody shall be here but me."

"But you! Why, you poor thing, he'll put that chain on you again,
knock you down, for all I know, and fasten you up like a beast. I'm
not going; I'll stay right here till he comes."

"No," shaking her head in sad earnestness, "better it will be for all
that I shall be here alone when he comes."

"Alone!" said he, impatiently; "what can you do alone?"

"When he comes," said she, drawing a great breath, shaking her hair
back from her face, her deep grave eyes holding him again in their
earnest appeal, "then I will stand by the door and kill him with the
ax!"

CHAPTER II

SWAN CARLSON

Mackenzie found it hard to bend the woman from this plan of summary
vengeance. She had suffered and brooded in her loneliness so long, the
cruel hand of Swan Carlson over her, that her thoughts had beaten a
path to this desire. This self-administration of justice seemed now
her life's sole aim. She approached it with glowing eyes and flushed
cheeks; she had lived for that hour.

Harshly she met Mackenzie's efforts at first to dissuade her from