d fairly well. There's something wild in every woman
that needs to be tamed, and it isn't like the wildness that runs in
wood critters; you can win that over by gentleness, but you have to
take it away from a woman. Every live thing that couldn't talk was my
friend; but I made the mistake of courting my own kind the same way,
not knowing that when two of any species mate the male must rule. I was
too gentle. Even so, I reckon I'd have won out only for another man.
Dan Bennett was his name--the kind that dumb animals hate, and--well,
that takes his measure. His range adjoined mine, and, though I'd never
seen him, I heard stories now and then--the sort of tales you can't
tell to a good woman; so it worried me when I heard of his attentions
to this girl. Still, I thought she'd surely find him out and recognize
the kind of fellow he was; but, Lord! a woman, can't tell a man from a
dog, and there wasn't any one to warn her. There were plenty of women
who knew him, but they were the ones who flew by night, while she lived
in the sunshine; and women of that kind don't make complaint, anyhow.

"This Bennett came from the town below, where he ran a saloon and a
brace game or two; but being as he rode into our camp and out again in
the night, and as I didn't drink nor listen to the music of the little
rolling ball, why, we never met, even after he began coming to Chandon.
Understand, I wasn't too good for those amusements; I just didn't
happen to hanker after them, for I was living with the image of the
little school-ma'am in my mind, and that destroyed what bad habits I'd
formed.

"It was along in the early spring that she began to see I had notions
about her, but my damned backwardness wouldn't let me speak, and, in
addition, I was getting closer to ore every shot at the mine, and was
holding off until I could lay both myself and my goldmine at her feet,
and ask her to take the two of us, so if one didn't pan out the other
might. But it seemed like I'd never get into pay. The closer I got the
harder I worked, and, of course, the less I saw of her, likewise the
oftener Bennett came. I reckon no man ever worked like I did--two
shifts a day, eighteen hours, with six to sleep. The skin came off of
my hands, and I staggered when I came out into the daylight, for the
rock was hard, and I had no money to hire a helper; but I was young and
strong, and the hope of her was like drink and food and sleep to me. At
last I struck it, and st