The Country Beyond | Page 8

stick against the rock, and like a shot the man whirled about
to face them. His face turned livid when he saw who it was, and he drew himself up until
he stood on his feet, his two big fists clenched, his yellow teeth snarling at her.
"You damned--spy!" he cried chokingly. "If you was a man--I'd kill you!"
The girl did not shrink. Her face did not whiten. Two bright spots flamed in her cheeks,
and Hawkins saw the triumph shining in her eyes. And there was a new thing in the odd
twist of her red lips, as she said tauntingly.
"If I was a man, Jed Hawkins--you'd run!"
He took a step toward her.
"You'd run," she repeated, meeting him squarely, and taking a tighter grip of her stick. "I
ain't ever seen you hit anything but a woman, an' a girl, or some poor animal that didn't
dare bite back. You're a coward, Jed Hawkins, a low-down, sneakin,' whiskey- sellin'
coward--and you oughta die!"
Even Peter sensed the cataclysmic change that had come in this moment between the two
big rocks. It held something in the air, like the impending crash of dynamite, or the
falling down of the world. He forgot himself, and looked up at his mistress, a wonderful,
slim little thing standing there at last unafraid before the future--and in his dog heart and
soul a part of the truth came to him, and he planted his big feet squarely in front of Jed
Hawkins, and snarled at him as he had never snarled before in his life.
And the bootlegger, for a moment, was stunned, For a while back he had humored the
girl a little, to hold her in peace and without suspicion until Mooney was able to turn over
her body-money. After that--after he had delivered her to the other's shack--it would all
be up to Mooney, he figured. And this was what had come of his peace-loving efforts!
She was taking advantage of him, defying him, spying upon him--the brat he had fed and
brought up for ten years! Her beauty as she stood there did not hold him back. It was

punishment she needed, a beating, a hair-pulling, until there was no breath left in her
impudent body. He sprang forward, and Peter let out a wild yip as he saw Nada raise her
stick. But she was a moment too slow. The man's hand caught it, and his right hand shot
forward and buried itself in the thick, soft mass of her hair.
It was then that something broke loose in Peter. For this day, this hour, this minute the
gods of destiny had given him birth. All things in the world were blotted out for him
except one--the six inches of naked shank between the bootlegger's trouser-leg and his
shoe. He dove in. His white teeth, sharp as stiletto-points, sank into it. And a wild and
terrible yell came from Jed Hawkins as he loosed the girl's hair. Peter heard the yell, and
his teeth sank deeper in the flesh of the first thing he had ever hated. It was the girl, more
than Peter, who realized the horror of what followed. The man bent down and his
powerful fingers closed round Peter's scrawny neck, and Peter felt his wind suddenly shut
off, and his mouth opened. Then Jed Hawkins drew back the arm that held him, as he
would have drawn it back to fling a stone.
With a scream the girl tore at him as his arm straightened out, and Peter went hurtling
through the air. Her stick struck him fiercely across the face, and in that same moment
there was a sickening, crushing thud as Peter's loosely-jointed little body struck against
the face of the great rock. When Nada turned Peter was groveling in the sand, his hips
and back broken down, but his bright eyes were on her, and without a whimper or a
whine he was struggling to drag himself toward her. Only Jolly Roger could tell the story
of how Peter's mother had died for a woman, and in this moment it must have been that
her spirit entered into Peter's soul, for the pain of his terrible hurt was forgotten in his
desire to drag himself back to the feet of the girl, and die facing her enemy--the man. He
did not know that he was dragging his broken body only an inch at a time through the
sand. But the girl saw the terrible truth, and with a cry of agony which all of Hawkin's
torture could not have wrung from her she ran to him, and fell upon her knees, and
gathered him tenderly in her arms. Then, in a flash, she was on her feet, facing Jed