in the withered, time-beaten body; here was _love_ in one of its ten
thousand forms. Love that is burning desire, that quenches all other
spark of the spirit, that is boundless; love of a hideously grotesque
and deformed sort; love defiled, twisted, misshapen as though Eros had
become an ugly, malformed, leering monstrosity. That love which is the
expression of the last degree of selfish greed, since it demands all and
gives nothing; that love which is like a rank weed, choking tenderer
growths; or more like a poisonous snake. Now it dominated the old man
utterly; the world beyond the rectangular top of the table did not
exist; now its elixir poured through his arteries so that for the first
time in months there came pinkish spots upon the withered cheeks,
showing through the scattering soiled grey hairs of his beard.

... Suddenly King went to the door, standing in the sunshine, filling
his lungs with the outside air. The sight of the gloating miser sickened
him. More than that. It sickened his fancies so that for a minute he
asked himself what he and Brodie were doing! The lure of gold. The thing
had hypnotized him; he wished that he were out in the mountains riding
among the pines and cedars; listening to the voice of the wilderness. It
was clean out there. Listening to Gloria's happy voice. Living in tune
with the springtime, thinking a man's thoughts, dreaming a man's dreams,
doing a man's work. And all for something other than just gold at the
end of it.

But the emotion, like a vertigo, passed as swiftly as it had come. For
he knew within himself that never had that twisted travesty of love
stirred within him; that though he had travelled on many a golden trail
it was clean-heartedly; that it was the game itself that counted ever
with him and no such poisonous emotions as grew within the wretched
breast of Loony Honeycutt. And these golden trails, though inevitably
they brought him trail fellows like Honeycutt, like Swen Brodie, were
none the less paths in which a man's feet might tread without shame and
in which the mire might be left to one side.

He turned back to the room. Honeycutt was near the bunk, groping for his
shotgun. He started guiltily, veiled his eyes, and returned empty-handed
to the table.

"If it was all in gold, now," said Honeycutt hurriedly.

King made no reference to Honeycutt's murderous intent.

"That paper is the same thing as gold," he said. "The government backs
it up."

"I know