You can go
free back to your old country. It's for Diane's sake! Her life, perhaps
her happiness, can be saved! Hurry, man! Your answer!"
"Suppose I refuse?" he queried, with a dark and terrible earnestness.
"Then I'll kill you in your tracks! You can't move a hand! Your word or
death! Hurry, Sampson! I can't last much longer. But I can kill you
before I drop. Be a man! For her sake! Quick! Another second now--By
God, I'll kill you!"
"All right, Russ! I give my word," he said, and deliberately walked to
the chair and fell into it, just as Morton came running up with his man.
"Put away your gun," I ordered them. "The game's up. Snecker and Wright
are dead. Sampson is my prisoner. He has my word he'll be protected.
It's for you to draw up papers with him. He'll divide all his property,
every last acre, every head of stock as you and Zimmer dictate. He gives
up all. Then he's free to leave the country, and he's never to return."
Chapter 14
THROUGH THE VALLEY
Sampson looked strangely at the great bloody blot on my breast and his
look made me conscious of a dark hurrying of my mind. Morton came
stamping up the steps with blunt queries, with anxious mien.
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