"I hate the whole thing! Why should I be the victim of conditions which are no part of my consent or my will? I don't want the title! I don't want a place in their silly, rotten world. I couldn't live in it or be a part of it. I'll take the ranch and make my own way, and I claim the right to do it. I want my own life and the freedom to live it. I gave the best that was in me to civilization, and civilization kicked me out, robbed me of a career, made my home a hell, and so I say—to hell with civilization."
McCloud was surprised. He was an emotional man too, and he thrilled to the sweep of this violence. He would have liked to take the boy in his arms and cry: "Oh, Absalom, my son, my son!" Instead, he held him away, shifted his own ground, and sought the joints of the other's harness. Hal's allusion to his home seemed to offer an opening.
"This wife in London, this unhappy home—perhaps it is an appointed barrier!"
"Barriers are surmounted—swept away!"
Hal was standing now and he looked audacious and puissant. He looked the master of his own destiny. The man who had passed through the fire, whose proud hopes and ambitions lay in broken heaps where the car of destiny had passed, looked at him in admiration.
"Yes, barriers are swept away; but only by those who humbly and patiently kneel down before them. Perhaps Infinite Wisdom stays your hand, to keep you from bringing sorrow to this helpless Indian woman whom you love, and to her children."
"Never!" was the answer, in the pride and strength of youth, in the consciousness of capacity, in the joy of a child of battle, the offspring of warriors, who had sung their triumph under torture. It was a wide gulf that separated this fierce courage from the white-faced saint who had learned in patience and humility.
"It's a feeble-minded man who keeps picking at the irrevocable," was McCloud's reply, more to himself than to the savage before him. "Suppose some day you grew tired of all this and wanted to go back and be a part of the world of convention, of fashion and culture?"
Hal had no argument to make to this, but it had no appeal, no meaning. He only made a gesture of negation and impatience.
"Oh, my boy," said McCloud helplessly; "you're a rebel."