own
success, although your path lies over a woman's disgrace and ruin."

"Haven't you ever thought of the other side of this at all? Can't
a woman ever think of mercy to a man? Can't she ever blame herself
just for being Eve, for being the incarnate temptation that she is
to any real man? Can't she see what she is to him? You talk about
ruin--I tell you it's ruin here, sure as we are born, for one or
both of us. I reckon maybe it's for both."

"Yes, it is for both."

"No. I'll not admit it!" he blazed out. "If I've been strong
enough to pull you down, I'm strong enough to carry you up again.
Only, don't force the worst part of me to the front all the time."

"A gentle wooer, indeed! And yet you blame me that I can not see a
man's side in a case like this."

"But in God's name, why should a man see any but a man's side of
it? Things don't go by reason, after all. The world goes, I
reckon, because there is a man's side to it. Anyhow, I am as I am.
Whatever you do here, whatever you are, don't try to wheedle me,
nor ask me to see your side, when there is only one side to this.
If any man ever lifted hand or eye to you, I'd kill him. I'll not
give up one jot of the right I've got in you, little as it is--I've
taken the right to hold you here and talk to you. But when you say
you'll not listen to me, then you do run against my side of it, my
man's side of it; and I tell you once more, I'm the owner of this
place. I live here. It's mine. I rule here, over free and
thrall."

With rude strength and pride he swept an arm widely around him,
covering half the circle of the valley. "It's mine!" he said
slowly. "Fit for a king, isn't it? Yes, fit for a queen. It is
almost fit for you."

His hat was in his hand. The breeze of the evening, drawing down
the valley, now somewhat chilled, lifted the loose hair on his
forehead. He stood, big, bulky and strong, like some war lord of
older days. The argument on his lips was that of the day of skins
and stone.

She who stood at his side, this prisoner of his prowess, taken by
his ruthless disregard of wish or rights of others, stood even with
his shoulder, tall, deep-bosomed, comely, as fair and fit and
womanly a woman as man's need has asked in any age of the world.
In the evening light the tears which had wet her eyes were less
visible. She might indeed have been fit queen for a spot like
this, mate for a man like this.

And now the chill of autumn la