"Shall not? You coward!"
He reached out as though to lay hands upon her, and she raised her
coiled whip to strike. But to his credit he never flinched; his white
face calmly waited to receive the blow. Then she deflected the stroke,
and the long lash hissed out and fell among the dogs. Swinging the
whip briskly, she rose to her knees on the sled and called frantically
to the animals. Hers was the better team, and she shot rapidly away
from Corliss. She wished to get away, not so much from him as from
herself, and she encouraged the huskies into wilder and wilder speed.
She took the steep river-bank in full career and dashed like a
whirlwind through the town and home. Never in her life had she been in
such a condition; never had she experienced such terrible anger. And
not only was she already ashamed, but she was frightened and afraid of
herself.
CHAPTER X
The next morning Corliss was knocked out of a late bed by Bash, one of
Jacob Welse's Indians. He was the bearer of a brief little note from
Frona, which contained a request for the mining engineer to come and
see her at his first opportunity. That was all that was said, and he
pondered over it deeply. What did she wish to say to him? She was
still such an unknown quantity,--and never so much as now in the light
of the day before,--that he could not guess.
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