els if he cared to work. He merely smiled amiably and said he
didn't think he cared to take on a laborer's job. It left a chap no
time for himself, you know. I suppose he'll vegetate here till he
comes into that money he's waiting for. He refers to that as if it
were something which pertained to him by divine right, something which
freed him from any obligation to make any effort to overcome the
sordid way in which they live at present."

"He doesn't consider it sordid," Hollister said. "Work is what he
considers sordid--and there is something to be said for his viewpoint,
at that. He enjoys himself tramping around with a gun, spending an
afternoon to catch half a dozen six-inch trout."

"But it _is_ sordid," Lawanne persisted. "Were you ever in their
house?"

Hollister shook his head.

"It isn't as comfortable as your men's bunk house. They have boxes for
chairs, a rickety table, a stove about ready to fall to pieces. There
are cracks in the walls and a roof that a rat could crawl through--or
there would be if Mrs. Bland didn't go about stuffing them up with
moss and old newspapers. Why can't a gentleman, an athlete and a
sportsman make his quarters something a little better than a Siwash
would be contented with? Especially if he has prevailed on a woman to
share his joys and sorrows. Some of these days Mr. Bland will wake up
and find his wife has gone off with some enterprising chap who is
less cocksure and more ambitious."

"Would you blame her?" Doris asked casually.

"Bless your soul, no," Lawanne laughed. "If I were a little more
romantic, I might run away with her myself. What a tremendous jar that
would give Bland's exasperating complacency. I believe he's a
hang-over from that prehistoric time when men didn't believe that any
woman had a soul--that a woman was something in which a man acquired a
definite property right merely by marrying her."

Doris chuckled.

"I can imagine how Mr. Bland would look if he heard you," she said.

"He'd only smile in a superior manner," Lawanne declared. "You
couldn't get Bland fussed up by any mere assertion. The only thing
that would stir him deeply would be a direct assault on that vague
abstraction which he calls his honor--or on his property. Then he
would very likely smite the wrongdoer with all the efficiency of
outraged virtue."

Hollister continued to muse on this after Lawanne went away. He
thought Lawanne's summing up a trifle severe. Nevertheless it was a