ld maid was tellin' me. I
brought out their mail to 'em. Marion Rose is the girl's name. I guess
she's got a feller or two down in Los Angeles--I brought out a couple
letters today in men's writin'--different hands, at that.

"They's somethin' queer about 'em that I can't see through. They was
both settin' out in the sun--on that log right by the trail as you go
in to the cabin--and they'd washed their hair and had it all down
their backs dryin' it. And the girl was cleanin' the old maid's finger
nails for her! I come purty near astin' the old maid if she had to
have somebody wash her face for her too. But they didn't seem to think
it was anything outa the way at all--they went right to talkin' and
visitin' like they was fixed for company. I kinda s'picion Marion
bleaches her hair. Seems to me like it's a mite too yeller to be
growed that way. Drugstore blonde, I'd call her. You take notice first
time you see her. I'll bet you'll say--"

"Aw, can that chatter, you poor fish!" Jack exploded unexpectedly, and
smote Hank on his lantern jaw with the flat of his palm. "You hick
from hick-town! You brainless ape! You ain't a man--you're a missing
link! Give you a four-foot tail, by harry, and you'd go down the
mountain swinging from branch to branch like the monkey that you are!
What are _you_, you poor piece of cheese, to talk about a woman?"

His hand to his jaw, Hank got up from where he had sprawled on his
back. He was not a fighting man, preferring to satisfy his grudges by
slurring people behind their backs. But Jack smacked him again and
thought of a few other things to which he might liken Hank, and after
that Hank fought like a trapped bobcat, with snarls and kicks and
gouging claws. He scratched Jack's neck with his grimy fingernails,
and he tried to set his unwashed teeth into Jack's left ear while the
two of them rolled over and over on the slippery mat of squaw-carpet.
And for that he was pummeled unmercifully before Jack tore himself
loose and got up.

"Now, you beat it!" Jack finished, panting. "And after this you keep
your tongue off the subject of women. Don't dare to mention even a
squaw to me, or I'll pitch you clean off the peak!"

Hank mumbled an insult, and Jack went after him again. All the misery,
all the pent-up bitterness of the past three months rose within him in
a sudden storm that clouded his reason. He fought Hank like a crazy
man--not so much because Hank was Hank and had spoken slightingl