CHAPTER XX.BRUTALITY.
A man had passed under the window of the room where Joel Barlow made that brutal and threatening speech to the girl he claimed to love. That man was the young trooper, Wilkins.
As he stopped a moment beneath the window he heard something of the talk that has been recorded. He was already angered against Barlow.
“Curse him!” he whispered. “Why should I stand his insolence? Just because he knows of my love of gambling and has kept his knowledge from the colonel, he has gradually got me in his power, until now I am lower than even he is, and that is as low as a man can get.”
He stood listening, held by curiosity and a dislike of Barlow.
When Barlow came out of the house, he walked so rapidly that he caught sight of the stooping form of Wilkins by the window, for Wilkins had not instantly hurried away. Barlow drew his revolver.
“A sneak and an eavesdropper, eh?” he whispered, thrown into a rage.
When he came nearer and saw Wilkins moving away he recognized who the watcher by the window was.
“Wilkins!” he said to himself.
He ran quickly forward; and when Wilkins, hearinghis steps, turned about, Barlow dashed up to him and knocked him to the ground with a single blow of his heavy fist.
“Get up!” he then commanded, kicking Wilkins with the toe of his boot. “You sneak, get up!”
Wilkins was weak and dazed. Barlow helped him to his feet, and then dragged him through the half darkness until the screening shadows of the cottonwoods were reached.
“You sneak!” he said, standing Wilkins up before him. “You low-down eavesdropper!” He lifted his fist again.
“Don’t—don’t strike me!” said Wilkins, putting up his hands to ward off the expected blow.
“You were under that window?”
“Yes, but——”
“And you were eavesdropping there!”
“No—no—I——”
A smashing blow in the face stopped the stammering words and threw Wilkins blind and bleeding against one of the cottonwoods. When he recovered enough to crawl to his feet, Barlow was sitting before him, staring at him in the half darkness.
“Wilkins,” he said, “that’s just to teach you that you can’t monkey with me! When you go wrong again I shall shoot you, which will be a great deal worse.”
Wilkins cowered before him.
There was blood on his lip, and when he put up his hand to his face the blood got on his hand.
“What did you mean to do with any information you secured in that way?” Barlow demanded.
“Nothing; I——”
“And that’s another lie! But understand that you stand by me, or I’ll see that you get what’s coming to you.”
Feeling that Wilkins was duly cowed, Barlow rose slowly and walked away.