“Did you get the gun?” Reno demanded. The girl shook her head. He snarled and flung the empty bottle against the cabin wall.

Linda stood without moving, her soft mouth parted, her dark eyes fixed on his, the color rising in her face. She seemed to be touched with a tawny glow.

Reno stared at her in amazement, and the fires of an awakened hunger swept over him.

He reached for her and as their lips met she uttered a strange little cry—half sob, half animal whimper. Then suddenly she pushed him away.

“You are a ‘bad lot.’”

Reno grinned. “I was never anything else. Now. Go get me that gun!”

“And if I don’t?”

He gazed at her, his eyes mocking. “You will,” he assured her softly. “You will.”