Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/173

 quick movement of her trembling fingers, and before either of the men could stop her, she tore the sheet in two, again and again.

"I'll kill you for that!" choked Ganley, his face contorted like a wrestler's, shaking and twitching, but not moving from where he stood.

McKinnon, with the revolver still in his hand, stepped between them.

"There's been enough of this prize-ring work," he cried as he faced Ganley. "I want to know what all this means."

"It means I'm going to get that woman," panted the other man, his face still grayish purple with rage.

"How get her!"

"Get her in irons, where she belongs."

"I stole nothing," interrupted the white-faced girl.

A stab of inapposite remorse went through McKinnon as he remembered that he himself was the cause of this last and unlovely scene.

"She lies!" Ganley was saying.

"Hold on there!" said McKinnon, getting a firmer and firmer grasp on both himself and the situation. "I came into this cabin and found you beating a girl over the head. Say what you've got to say about it. Then the girl can say what she has to say."

Ganley stared at his self-appointed judge.