“It is not that,” she said, slowly. “I have been thinking it over during the past month, and now that I have gained an insight into this life I see that it wasn’t an unnatural thing for you to do. It’s terrible to think of, but it’s true. I don’t mean that it was pardonable,” she continued, quickly, “for it wasn’t, and I hate you when I think about it, but I suppose I put myself into a position to invite such actions. No; I’m sufficiently broad-minded not to blame you unreasonably, and I think I could like you in spite of it, just for what you have done for me; but that isn’t all. There is something deeper. You saved my life and I’m grateful, but you frighten me, always. It is the cruelty in your strength, it is something away back in you—lustful, and ferocious, and wild, and crouching.”
He smiled wryly.
“It is my local color, maybe—absorbed from this country. I’ll try to change, though, if you want me to. I’ll let them rope and throw and brand me. I’ll take on the graces of civilization and put away revenge and ambition and all the rest of it, if it will make you like me any better. Why, I’ll even promise not to violate the person of our claim-jumper if I catch him; and Heaven knows that means that Samson has parted with his locks.”
“I think I could like you if you did,” she said, “but you can’t do it. You are a savage.”
There are no clubs nor marts where men foregather for business in the North—nothing but the saloon, and this is all and more than a club. Here men congregate to drink, to gamble, and to traffic.
It was late in the evening when Glenister entered the Northern and passed idly down the row of games, pausing at the crap-table, where he rolled the dice when his turn came. Moving to the roulette-wheel, he lost a stack of whites, but at the faro “lay-out” his luck was better, and he won a gold coin on the “high-card.” Whereupon he promptly ordered a round of drinks for the men grouped about him, a formality always precedent to overtures of general friendship.
As he paused, glass in hand, his eyes were drawn to a man who stood close by, talking earnestly. The aspect of the stranger challenged notice, for he stood high above his companions with a peculiar grace of attitude in place of the awkwardness common in men of great stature. Among those who were listening intently to the man’s carefully modulated tones, Glenister recognized Mexico Mullins, the ex-gambler who had given Dextry the warning at Unalaska. As he further studied the listening group, a drunken man staggered uncertainly through the wide doors of the saloon and, gaining sight of the tall stranger, blinked, then approached him, speaking with a loud voice:
“Well, if ’tain’t ole Alec McNamara! How do, ye ole pirate!”
McNamara nodded and turned his back coolly upon the new-comer.
“Don’t turn your dorsal fin to me; I wan’ to talk to ye.”