ly
expecting her. All of which went far to strengthen a certain wavering
purpose in his mind.

"Ah, ha! strong language, Mr. Dunn," said Father Wynn, referring to the
sheriff's adjuration, "but 'out of the fullness of the heart the mouth
speaketh.' Job, sir, cursed, we are told, and even expressed himself in
vigorous Hebrew regarding his birthday. Ha, ha! I'm not opposed to that.
When I have often wrestled with the spirit I confess I have sometimes
said, 'D--n you.' Yes, sir, 'D--n you.'"

There was something so unutterably vile in the reverend gentleman's
utterance and emphasis of this oath that the two men, albeit both easy
and facile blasphemers, felt shocked; as the purest of actresses is apt
to overdo the rakishness of a gay Lothario, Father Wynn's immaculate
conception of an imprecation was something terrible. But he added, "The
law ought to interfere with the reckless use of camp-fires in the woods
in such weather by packers and prospectors."

"It isn't so much the work of white men," broke in Brace, "as it is
of Greasers, Chinamen, and Diggers, especially Diggers. There's that
blasted Low, ranges the whole Carquinez Woods as if they were his. I
reckon he ain't particular just where he throws his matches."

"But he's not a Digger; he's a Cherokee, and only a half-breed at that,"
interpolated Wynn. "Unless," he added, with the artful suggestion of the
betrayed trust of a too credulous Christian, "he deceived me in this as
in other things."

In what other things Low had deceived him he did not say; but, to the
astonishment of both men, Dunn growled a dissent to Brace's proposition.
Either from some secret irritation with that possible rival, or
impatience at the prolonged absence of Nellie, he had "had enough of
that sort of hog-wash ladled out to him for genuine liquor." As to the
Carquinez Woods, he [Dunn] "didn't know why Low hadn't as much right
there as if he'd grabbed it under a preemption law and didn't live
there." With this hint at certain speculations of Father Wynn in public
lands for a homestead, he added that "If they [Brace and Wynn] could
bring him along any older American settler than an Indian, they
might rake down his [Dunn's] pile." Unprepared for this turn in the
conversation, Wynn hastened to explain that he did not refer to the pure
aborigine, whose gradual extinction no one regretted more than himself,
but to the mongrel, who inherited only the vices of civilization. "There
should be a