"If he's sick, let him stay in bed—and have a wet nurse. Maybe you can be that."
The lids drooped halfway over her gray eyes, and the slim finger curled more tightly about the trigger. "Oh, I wish I could shoot you, Bert!" she said. She did n't whisper it, or hiss it, or hurl it, or do any of the things most people are supposed to do in moments of violent emotion. She simply said it, and her meaning was all the clearer.
"But you can't. And I 'll pound that milksop of yours to a jelly every time I see him. I'd think, Snowbird, that you'd want a man."
He started up the trail; and then she did a strange thing. "He's more of a man than you are, right now, Bert," she told him. "He 'll prove it some day." Then her arm went about Dan's neck and lifted his head upon her breast; and in Cranston's plain sight, she bent and kissed him, softly, on the lips.
Cranston's answer was an oath. It dripped from his lips, more poisonous, more malicious than the venom of a snake. His late calm, treasured so much, dropped from him in an instant. His features seemed to tighten, the dark lips drew away from his teeth. No words could have made him such an effective answer as this little action of hers. And as he turned up the trail, he called down to her a name,—
