She paused long before replying, and when she did her answer sounded like a jest.
“I herald the coming of the law,” she said.
“The law! Bah! Red tape, a dead language, and a horde of shysters! I’m afraid of law in this land; we’re too new and too far away from things. It puts too much power in too few hands. Heretofore we men up here have had recourse to our courage and our Colt’s, but we’ll have to unbuckle them both when the law comes. I like the court that hasn’t any appeal.” He laid hand upon his hip.
“The Colt’s may go, but the courage never will,” she broke in.
“Perhaps. But I’ve heard rumors already of a plot to prostitute the law. In Unalaska a man warned Dextry, with terror in his eye, to beware of it; that beneath the cloak of Justice was a drawn dagger whetted for us fellows who own the rich diggings. I don’t think there’s any truth in it, but you can’t tell.”
“The law is the foundation—there can’t be any progress without it. There is nothing here now but disorder.”
“There isn’t half the disorder you think there is. There weren’t any crimes in this country till the tender-feet arrived. We didn’t know what a thief was. If you came to a cabin you walked in without knocking. The owner filled up the coffee-pot and sliced into the bacon; then when he’d started your meal, he shook hands and asked your name. It was just the same whether his cache was full or whether he’d packed his few pounds of food two hundred miles on his back. That was hospitality to make your Southern article look pretty small. If there was no one at home, you ate what you needed. There was but one unpardonable breach of etiquette—to fail to leave dry kindlings. I’m afraid of the transitory stage we’re coming to—that epoch of chaos between the death of the old and the birth of the new. Frankly, I like the old way best. I love the license of it. I love to wrestle with nature; to snatch, and guard, and fight for what I have. I’ve been beyond the law for years and I want to stay there, where life is just what it was intended to be—a survival of the fittest.”
His large hands, as he gripped the bulwark, were tense and corded, while his rich voice issued softly from his chest with the hint of power unlimited behind it. He stood over her, tall, virile, and magnetic. She saw now why he had so joyously hailed the fight of the previous night; to one of his kind it was as salt air to the nostrils. Unconsciously she approached him, drawn by the spell of his strength.
“My pleasures are violent and my hate is mighty bitter in my mouth. What I want, I take. That’s been my way in the old life, and I’m too selfish to give it up.”
He was gazing out upon the dimly lucent miles of ice; but now he turned towards her, and, doing so, touched her warm hand next his on the rail.