She screamed--once--twice--with the full power of her lungs. And then
Slade savagely brought a big hand over her mouth and held it there. She
fought to escape the clutch, kicking, squirming--trying to bite the
hand. But to no avail. The terrible pressure on her mouth was
suffocating her, and the room went dark as she continued to fight. She
thought Slade had extinguished the light, and she was conscious of a
dull curiosity over how he had done it. And then sound seem to cease.
She felt nothing, saw nothing, heard nothing. She was conscious only of
that terrible pressure over her mouth and nose. And finally she ceased
to feel even that.
CHAPTER XL
PRIMITIVE INSTINCTS
Shorty and a dozen Circle L men--among them Blackburn and the three
others who had been wounded in the fight with the rustlers on the plains
the previous spring--had been waiting long in a gully at a distance of a
mile or more from the Hamlin cabin. Shortly after dark they had filed
into the gully, having come directly from the Circle L.
Hours before, they had got off their horses to stretch their legs, and
to wait. And now they had grown impatient. It was cold--even in the
gulley where the low moaning, biting wind did not reach them--and they
knew they could have no fire.
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