Jean, in his eager, hungry devouring of the beloved face, did not on the first instant grasp the significance of its expression. He was seeing the features that had haunted him. But quickly he interpreted her expression as the somber, hunted look of a woman who would bear no more. Under the torn blouse her full breast heaved. She held her hands clenched at her sides. She was' listening, waiting for that jangling, slow step. It came, and with the sound she subtly changed. She was a woman hiding her true feelings. She relaxed, and that strong, dark look of fury seemed to fade back into her eyes.
Colter appeared at the door, carrying a roll of blankets and a pack.
"Throw them heah," she said. "I reckon y'u needn't bother coming in."
That angered the man. With one long stride he stepped over the doorsill, down into the cabin, and flung the blankets at her feet and then the pack after it. Whereupon he deliberately sat down in the door, facing her. With one hand he slid off his sombrero, which fell outside, and with the other he reached in his upper vest pocket for the little bag of tobacco that showed there. All the time he looked at her. By the light now unobstructed Jean descried Colter's face; and sight of it then sounded the roll and drum of his passions.
"Wal, Ellen, I reckon we'll have it out right now an' heah," he said, and with tobacco in one hand, paper in the other he began the operations of making a cigarette. However, he scarcely removed his glance from her.
"Yes?" queried Ellen Jorth.
"I'm goin' to have things the way they were before--an' more," he declared. The cigarette paper shook in his fingers.
"What do y'u mean?" she demanded.
"Y'u know what I mean," he retorted. Voice and action were subtly unhinging this man's control over himself.
"Maybe I don't. I reckon y'u'd better talk plain."
The rustler had clear gray-yellow eyes, flawless, like, crystal, and suddenly they danced with little fiery flecks.
"The last time I laid my hand on y'u I got hit for my pains. An' shore that's been ranklin'."
"Colter, y'u'll get hit again if y'u put your hands on me," she said, dark, straight glance on him. A frown wrinkled the level brows.
"Y'u mean that?" he asked, thickly.
"I shore, do."
Manifestly he accepted her assertion. Something of incredulity and bewilderment, that had vied with his resentment, utterly disappeared from his face.