ich tan to sickly yellow. An inarticulate,
gurgling sound escaped his lips, and his eyes stared in horror toward a
point beyond and behind her.

She turned swiftly and gazed into the face of a man who had approached
unnoticed from the direction of the river, and stood a few paces distant
with his eyes fixed upon her. As their glances met the man's gaze
continued unflinching, and the soft-brimmed Stetson remained on his head.
Her slender fingers clenched into her palms and, unconsciously, her chin
thrust forward--for she knew intuitively that the man was "Brute" MacNair.

CHAPTER VI

BRUTE MACNAIR

Estimates are formed, in a far greater measure than most of us care to
admit, upon first impressions. Manifestly shallow and embryonic though
we admit them to be, our first impressions crystallize, in nine cases
out of ten, into our fixed or permanent opinions. And, after all, the
reason for this absurdity is simple--egotism.

Our opinions, based upon first impressions--and we rarely pause to
analyse first impressions--have become _our opinions_, the result, as
we fondly imagine, of our judgment. Our judgment must be
right--because it is our judgment. Therefore, unconsciously or
consciously, every subsequent impression is bent to bolster up and
sustain that judgment. We hate to be wrong. We hate to admit, even to
ourselves, that we are wrong.

Strange, isn't it? How often we are right (permit the smile) in our
estimate of people?

When Chloe Elliston turned to face MacNair among the stumps of the
sunlit clearing, her opinion of the man had already been formed. He
was Brute MacNair, one to be hated, despised. To be fought, conquered,
and driven out of the North--for the good of the North. His influence
was a malignant ulcer--a cancerous plague-spot, whose evil tentacles,
reaching hidden and unseen, would slowly but surely fasten themselves
upon the civilization of the North--sap its vitality--poison its blood.

In the flash of her first glance the girl's eyes took in every
particular and detail of him. She noted the huge frame, broad, yet
lean with the gaunt leanness of health, and endurance, and physical
strength. The sinew-corded, bronzed hands that clenched slowly as his
glance rested for a moment upon the face of Lapierre. The
weather-tanned neck that rose, columnlike, from the open shirt-throat.
The well-poised head. The prominent, high-bridged nose. The lantern
jaw, whose rugged outline wa