from the weird
eroded pillar that we stood beside. He threw it into a bank of last
year's snow. We all watched it as if it were important. Up through the
mountain silence pierced the long quivering whistle of a bull-elk. It
was like an unearthly singer practising an unearthly scale.

"First time she heard that," said McLean, "she was scared."

"Nothin' maybe to resemble it in Austria," said the Virginian.

"That's so," said McLean. "That's so, you bet! Nothin' just like Hank
over there, neither."

"Well, flesh is mostly flesh in all lands, I reckon," said the
Virginian. "I expect yu' can be drunk and disorderly in every language.
But an Austrian Hank would be liable to respect her crucifix."

"That's so!"

"He ain't made her quit it yet?"

"Not him. But he's got meaner."

"Drunk this mawnin', yu' say?"

"That's his most harmless condition now."

"Nobody's in camp but them two? Her and him alone?"

"Oh, he dassent touch her."

"Who did he tell that to?"

"Oh, the camp is backin' her. The camp has explained that to him several
times, you bet! And what's more, she has got the upper hand of him
herself. She has him beat."

"How beat?"

"She has downed him with her eye. Just by endurin' him peacefully; and
with her eye. I've saw it. Things changed some after yu' pulled out. We
had a good crowd still, and it was pleasant, and not too lively nor yet
too slow. And Willomene, she come more among us. She'd not stay shut
in-doors, like she done at first. I'd have like to've showed her how to
punish Hank."

"Afteh she had downed yu' with her eye?" inquired the Virginian.

Young McLean reddened, and threw a furtive look upon me, the stranger,
the outsider. "Oh, well," he said, "I done nothing onusual. But that's
all different now. All of us likes her and respects her, and makes
allowances for her bein' Dutch. Yu' can't help but respect her. And she
shows she knows."

"I reckon maybe she knows how to deal with Hank," said the Virginian.

"Shucks!" said McLean, scornfully. "And her so big and him so puny! She'd
ought to lift him off the earth with one arm and lam him with a baste or
two with the other, and he'd improve."

"Maybe that's why she don't," mused the Virginian, slowly; "because
she is so big. Big in the spirit, I mean. She'd not stoop to his
level. Don't yu' see she is kind o' way up above him and camp and
everything--just her and her crucifix?"

"Her and her crucifix!" repeated young Lin McLean,