Two bright spots flamed in her cheeks, and Hawkins saw the triumph shining in her eyes.
And there was a new thing in the odd twist of her red lips, as she said tauntingly.
"If I was a man, Jed Hawkins--you'd run!" He took a step toward her.
"You'd run," she repeated, meeting him squarely, and taking a tighter grip of her stick.

"I ain't ever seen you hit anything but a woman, an' a girl, or some poor animal that didn't dare bite back.

You're a coward, Jed Hawkins, a low-down, sneakin,' whiskey-sellin' coward--and you oughta die!" Even Peter sensed the cataclysmic change that had come in this moment between the two big rocks.

It held something in the air, like the impending crash of dynamite, or the falling down of the world.

He forgot himself, and looked up at his mistress, a wonderful, slim little thing standing there at last unafraid before the future--and in his dog heart and soul a part of the truth came to him, and he planted his big feet squarely in front of Jed Hawkins, and snarled at him as he had never snarled before in his life.
And the bootlegger, for a moment, was stunned, For a while back he had humored the girl a little, to hold her in peace and without suspicion until Mooney was able to turn over her body-money.