His watery, awry eyes gleamed, and his thick underlip
drooped complacently. He would see if she had as much
grit as she laid claim to. It was all in the day's sport;
but he would have to hurry up.
He seized the Winchester, and, holding it in front of
him, jerked down the lever as he had seen Dorothy do, so
as to eject the old and put a fresh cartridge into the
breech. But the old cartridge, in springing out, flew up
and hit him such a smart rap between the eyes that Leon
at once seized his little opportunity and laughed
ironically.
"Good shot, Lucien!" he cried. "Encore, _mon ami!_"
Lucien's eyes were watering and smarting, and he felt
quite like shooting his sympathetic friend on the spot,
but he kept his wrath bravely under, and resolved to show
Leon in a very practical fashion how he could shoot on
the first auspicious occasion. Yes, such a blessed
opportunity would be worth waiting and suffering for.
And now they prepared to remove Dorothy from the roof,
and take her inside the hut. Leon was to descend first,
and then Lucien was to make her jump into the snowdrift,
where she would stick, and Leon would be waiting for her.
Poor Dorothy knew that if help did not come speedily she
would be undone. She prayed for Divine aid. She could
not believe that God would look down from Heaven and see
these fiends prevail. God's ways, she was aware, were
sometimes inscrutable, and seemed to fall short of justice,
but she knew that sooner or later they invariably worked
out retributive justice more terrible than man's.
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