For a woman she was too assertive, too belligerent by half.

Though considering her now, he was reluctantly compelled to admit that she was a forceful figure, and, reviewing the conversation he had had with her a few minutes before, the picture she had made standing in the doorway defying him, mocking him, rebuking him, he could not repress a thrill of grudging admiration.
For half an hour he stood at the corral fence.

He rolled and smoked three cigarettes, his thoughts wrapped in memories of the past and revolving the problem of his future.

Once Betty stood in the kitchen door for fully a minute, watching him speculatively, and twice old Malcolm passed him on the way to do some chore, eyeing him curiously.
Calumet did not see either of them.
Nor did he observe that the slinking form which he had observed moving among the weeds on the distant hill in the valley had approached to within twenty yards of him, was crouching in a corner of the corral fence, watching him with blazing, blood-shot eyes, its dull gray hair bristling, its white fangs bared in a snarl.
It had been a long stalk, and the beast's jaws were slavering from exertion.

It watched, crouching and panting, for a favorable moment to make the attack which it meditated.
It had seen Calumet from the hill and had dropped down to the level, keeping out of sight behind the sagebrush and the clumps of mesquite, crossing the open places on its belly, stealing upon him silently and cunningly.