Page:Harold Titus--Timber.djvu/76

68 after a manner; as it was, he felt of very little consequence.

A car approached and he heard voices, Helen's and a man's. They entered the room below as he began dressing.

"There's nothing any one can do, Milt," the girl was saying. "Some of the neighbors are there, but Thad wanted to be left alone, more than anything else. He is going to bury her there beside the house. She wanted it that way, he said." Pause.

"Sim Burns stopped at the mill last night," the man said. "He made threats."

"After he had made them to me."

"He was here?"

"Here in this room. He—Mr. Taylor saved me a scare by putting him out. He got quite—rough."

The man before her was big, with gray eyes, light hair, huge hands and the supple limbs of a man who has grown up in action.

"Talked taxation, did he?"

"Yes—that was enough."

She sank to her chair and propping her chin in her hands stared gloomily through the window. The man stepped forward quickly.

"You know what that means," he said. "You know he has it on you. There is no use trying to fight the law even if it is unjust. Can't you see that? Can't you quit before it is too late?"

She shook her head. "Don't Milt, please! I can't quit empty handed!"

"You've a fortune here now. You're gambling on a chance to lose everything and win very little more. It's—"

"It's only the beginning of the pinch. It was bound to come. We've got to go through with it!"