For the last moment Nora could hardly have been said to have listened. In a delirium of terror her eyes swept the little cabin, searching desperately for some means of escape. As he made a step toward her, her roving eye suddenly fell on her husband's gun, standing where Sharp had left it when he brought it in. With a bound, she was across the room, the gun at her shoulder. With an oath, Frank started forward.
'If you move, I'll kill you!'
'You daren't!'
'Unless you open that door and let me go, I'll shoot you--I'll shoot you!'
'Shoot, then!' He held his arms wide, exposing his broad chest.
With a sobbing cry, she pulled the trigger. The click of the falling hammer was heard, nothing more.
'Gee whiz!' shouted Taylor in admiration. 'Why, you meant it!'
The gun fell clattering to the floor.
'It wasn't loaded?'
'Of course it wasn't loaded. D'you think I'd have stood there and told you to shoot if it had been? I guess I ain't thinking of committin' suicide.'
'And I almost admired you!'
'You hadn't got no reason to. There's nothing to admire about a man who stands five feet off a loaded gun that's being aimed at him. He'd be a darned fool, that's all.'
'You were laughing at me all the time.'
'You'd have had me dead as mutton if that gun 'ud been loaded. You're a sport, all right, all right. I never thought you had it in you. You're the girl for me, I guess!'
As she stood there, dazed, perfectly unprepared, he threw his arms around her and attempted to kiss her.
'Let me alone! I'll kill myself if you touch me!'
'I guess you won't.' He kissed her full on the mouth, then let her go.
Sinking into a chair, she sobbed in helpless, angry despair.
'Oh, how shameful, how shameful!'
He let her alone for a little; then, when the violence of her sobbing had died away, came over and laid his hand gently on her shoulder.
'Hadn't you better cave in, my girl? You've tried your strength against mine and it hasn't amounted to much. You even tried to shoot me and I only made you look like a darned fool. I guess you're beat, my girl. There's only one law here. That's the law of the strongest. You've got to do what I want because I can make you.'
'Haven't you any generosity?'
'Not the kind you want, I guess.'
She gave a little moan of anguish.
'Hark!' He held up his hand as if to call her attention to something. For a moment, hope flamed from its embers. But stealing a glance at his face from beneath her drooping lashes, she saw that she was mistaken. The last spark died, to be rekindled no more.
'Listen! Listen to the silence. Can't you hear it, the silence of the prairie? Why, we might be the only two people in the world, you and me, here in this little shack, right out
Nora gave him a sidelong look of terror and remained dumb. What would have been the use of words even if she could have found voice to utter them?
Taking up the lamp, he went to the door of the bedroom and threw it wide. She saw without looking that he remained standing, like a statue of Fate, on the threshold.
