He looked away from her as he asked the question.  He was afraid, just then, that something was in his face which he did not want her to see.  He began to understand; at least he was beginning to picture a very horrible possibility.

“I—­don’t—­know,” he heard her say, close to his shoulder.  “It was night before last I heard them quarrelling, and I crept close to a door that was a little open, and looked in.  Brokaw had given my uncle a bag of gold, a little sack, like the miners use, and I heard him swear at my uncle, and say:  ’That’s more than she is worth but I’ll give in. Now she’s mine!’ I don’t know why it frightened me so.  It wasn’t Brokaw.  I guess it was the terrible look in that man’s face—­my uncle’s.  Tara and I ran away that night.  Why do you suppose they want to put Tara in a cage?  Do you think Brokaw was buying Tara to put into that cage?  He said ‘she,’ not ’he’.”

He looked at her again.  Her eyes were not so fearless now.

“Was he buying Tara, or me?” she insisted.

“Why do you have that thought—­that he was buying you?” David asked.  “Has anything—­happened?”

A second time a fury of blood leapt into her face and her lashes shadowed a pair of blazing stars.

“He—­that red brute—­caught me in the dark two weeks ago, and held me there—­and kissed me!” She fairly panted at him, springing to her feet and standing before him.  “I would have screamed, but it was in the house, and Tara couldn’t have come to me.  I scratched him, and fought, but he bent my head back until it hurt.  He tried it again the day he gave my uncle the gold, but I struck him with a stick, and got away.  Oh, I hate him!  And he knows it.  And my uncle cursed me for striking him!  And that’s why ...  I’m running away.”

“I understand,” said David, rising and smiling at her confidently, while in his veins his blood was running like little streams of fire.  “Don’t you believe, now, all that I’ve told you about the picture?  How it tried so hard to talk to me, and tell me to hurry?  It got me here just about in time, didn’t it?  It’ll be a great joke on Brokaw, little girl.  And your uncle Hauck.  A great joke, eh?” He laughed.  He felt like laughing, even as his blood pounded through him at fever heat.  “You’re a little brick, Marge—­you and your bear!”

It was the first time he had thought of the bear since Marge had detached herself from the big beast to come to him, and as he looked in its direction he gave a startled exclamation.

Baree and the grizzly had been measuring each other for some time.  To Baree this was the most amazing experience in all his life, and flattened out between the two rocks he was at a loss to comprehend why his master did not either run or shoot.  He wanted to jump out, if his master showed fight, and leap straight at that ugly monster, or he wanted to run away as fast as his legs would carry him.  He was