nstinct's
stronger'n me. Kill me, but I can't help it."

Saxon was melted. Tears were in her eyes as she stooped and gathered
the mite of an animal in her arms. Possum was in a frenzy of agitation,
whining, trembling, writhing, twisting, licking her face, all for
forgiveness.

"Heart of gold with a rose in his mouth," Saxon crooned, burying her
face in the soft and quivering bundle of sensibilities. "Mother is
sorry. She'll never bother you again that way. There, there, little
love. See? There's your bone. Take it."

She put him down, but he hesitated between her and the bone, patently
looking to her for surety of permission, yet continuing to tremble in
the terrible struggle between duty and desire that seemed tearing him
asunder. Not until she repeated that it was all right and nodded her
head consentingly did he go to the bone. And once, a minute later, he
raised his head with a sudden startle and gazed inquiringly at her.
She nodded and smiled, and Possum, with a happy sigh of satisfaction,
dropped his head down to the precious deer-rib.

"That Mercedes was right when she said men fought over jobs like dogs
over bones," Billy enunciated slowly. "It's instinct. Why, I couldn't
no more help reaching my fist to the point of a scab's jaw than could
Possum from snappin' at you. They's no explainin' it. What a man has to
he has to. The fact that he does a thing shows he had to do it whether
he can explain it or not. You remember Hall couldn't explain why he
stuck that stick between Timothy McManus's legs in the foot race. What
a man has to, he has to. That's all I know about it. I never had no
earthly reason to beat up that lodger we had, Jimmy Harmon. He was a
good guy, square an' all right. But I just had to, with the strike goin'
to smash, an' everything so bitter inside me that I could taste it.
I never told you, but I saw 'm once after I got out--when my arms was
mendin'. I went down to the roundhouse an' waited for 'm to come in
off a run, an' apologized to 'm. Now why did I apologize? I don't know,
except for the same reason I punched 'm--I just had to."

And so Billy expounded the why of like in terms of realism, in the camp
by the Umpqua River, while Possum expounded it, in similar terms of fang
and appetite, on the rib of deer.

CHAPTER XVI

With Possum on the seat beside her, Saxon drove into the town of
Roseburg. She drove at a walk. At the back of the wagon were tied two
heavy young work-horses.