Page:Ritchie - Trails to Two Moons.djvu/250

 was not a part of her. It was racing like a wild locomotive.

Horror, blind passion, fear, shame,—like a revolving color chart these emotions flickered across her consciousness, each leaving its trace of an impression to mingle with the next and produce a blur of sensation. Then slowly emerged a thought which would not down, try as she would furiously to suppress it.

"The first man," so ran that thought—"the first man to" At first the thought did not finish itself, but kept reiterating itself through her brain courses like a hammer's din. Then in a flash the thing popped out completed :

"The first man to break me down!"

Tears stood in the girl's eyes,—tears of anger, yes, and of self-revelation. Had she a rifle in her hands she would have leveled it at those smoothly rippling shoulders a few paces before her and without compunction sent a bullet between them. Yet

All at once a vivid picture of that minute when she was in his arms flashed on the retina of her soul. She saw again the laughing eyes,—clean eyes with naught but mischief in them; she saw the impish mockery of the lips that