e the interview at
pleasure. Yet, even while his anger mounted high, the Scotchman
felt himself compelled to an involuntary admiration for the
authoritative composure in the manner of one who, by the accident
of birth, was no better than a barbarian--was, indeed, something
worse, since the crossing of the civilized blood with the savage
is usually a disastrous thing. This was the Hudson Bay man's first
experience of indignity visited on himself, and, for that reason,
he felt a double humiliation over the seriousness of his situation.
Exasperation grew in him over the fact that even now his many and
varied emotions did not include in the least such repulsion as he
had imagined a tete-a-tete with a murderer must produce. On
the contrary, he was aware of an indefinable air of genuineness,
of nobility even, about this Montagnais Englishman. It was incredible,
surely--none the less, it was true. Donald's instinct set him to
wondering involuntarily whether, after all, the man before him
could really be guilty of the crime charged. His reason rallied to
argument that this fellow was of a vicious strain, capable of any
treachery, of any cowardly violence. In such as Seguis, the vices
of two races blend, for vice knows little distinction of tribe or
creed; the mingling of a dozen bloods will but serve to strengthen
the violence in each. The virtues, on the contrary, are matters of
geography, in great part--to each race its own. They are prone to
vanishing in the mixed blood. Usually, too, the civilized white
man who degrades himself to mate with a savage woman is himself a
wastrel, essentially evil, likely to beget nothing good.

Such reasoning is sound enough, in the main, as Donald, despite
his bewilderment, knew well. Nevertheless, in this instance the
product of miscegenation seemed to offer in his own person a subtle
contradiction. The man stood in a serenity that proclaimed an
assured self-respect. The dark eyes above the high cheekbones were
glowing clearly, as they stared in level interrogation on the
prisoner. The features, coarse, yet of a pleasing harmoniousness,
were set in lines of a strength that was at once calm and masterful.
Whatever might be the blackness hidden in his heart, the half-breed's
outer seeming was one to command respect... In quick appreciation
of the truth, Donald was constrained to admit that his own conduct
thus far had not been of a sort to match the courtesy of his jailer.

"What do you wan