"Thunlight dead!" he stormed. "You thay that to me? Yeth? Then, by God, juth ath thure as I live, I'll...."
He cut himself short; his face, instantly red with rage, grew redder with shame. He snapped his great jaws shut, and across the room Deveril heard the grinding of his teeth. He swerved about, charging toward the door, which gave entrance to the room where Gallup was.
But a far more critical moment than Timber-Wolf knew was ticking in the clock of his life. In the hall stood the girl, Lynette. She had heard all of these words of Billy Winch, and she had heard Bruce Standing's bellowed rejoinder. And she, already taut-nerved and keyed up, what with fatigue and a strenuous night, was so struck by the absurdity of a strong man lisping his passionate utterance, that she broke out into uncontrollable laughter. And when Lynette Brooke's laughter caught her unawares, it rang out as clearly as the chiming of silver bells. Now, with nerves quivering, she was almost hysterical....
Timber-Wolf came to as dead a halt as though it had been a bullet instead of the mockery of a girl's laughter which cut into his heart. For only mockery he made of it, he who upon this one point, as upon no other, was so sensitive. And to have a human female laugh at him!
His rage threatened to choke him. But now, even as he had forgotten his lost bet with Babe Deveril, so did he forget a dead horse and Young Gallup. The entire violence of his anger was deflected, turned upon a woman who had eavesdropped upon his ignominy and then assailed him with the mockery of her mirth. He who held all womankind in such high scorn, to be now a woman's laughing-stock! He, Bruce Standing, Timber-Wolf! He snatched at the hall door, and under his attack one of the ancient hinges broke, and the door, flung back, leaned crazily against the wall. And all the while, though he kept his teeth so hard set that his jaws bulged with the strain, he was muttering curses in his throat. He burst into the dim hallway, his brain on fire.
She heard him coming. More than that, and before, it seemed to her that her instinct told her that he would come, bearing down upon her like a hurricane, in such violence as would stamp her into the earth. She had not meant to laugh at him; she did not want to laugh. And yet now all that she could do was clap her hands over her mouth and run before him as a blown leaf races before the storm. She sped down the hall, plunged into her room, slammed the door after her.