Pagina 54 de 439

She looked at him and then looked quickly away again. There was

something absolutely repulsive in the creature--in the big ears

that stood out from the close-cropped head, in the fishy eyes

that saw everything without ever looking directly at anything, in

the crooked mouth with its irregular rows of stained teeth from

which several were missing. She had often wondered about her

brother, but never at the worst had she imagined anything so bad

as this. The memory would be enough to give one the shudders for

years.

"Guess I ain't next to all that happened there in the mesquite,"

he sneered, with a lift of the ugly lip.

She did not look at him. She did not speak. There seethed in her

a loathing and a disgust beyond expression.