n his hand. She was
uneasy, but not afraid. There was nothing about him or his actions to
make her fear. On the contrary, Roaring Bill at close quarters
inspired confidence. Why she could not and did not attempt to
determine, psychological analysis being rather out of her line.

Physically, however, Roaring Bill measured up to a high standard. He
was young, probably twenty-seven or thereabouts. There was
power--plenty of it--in the wide shoulders and deep chest of him, with
arms in proportion. His hands, while smooth on the backs and well
cared for, showed when he exposed the palms the callouses of ax
handling. And his face was likable, she decided, full of character,
intensely masculine. In her heart every woman despises any hint of the
effeminate in man. Even though she may decry what she is pleased to
term the brute in man, whenever he discards the dominant, overmastering
characteristics of the male she will have none of him. Miss Hazel Weir
was no exception to her sex.

Consciously or otherwise she took stock of Bill Wagstaff. She knew him
to be in bad odor with Cariboo Meadows for some unknown reason. She
had seen him fight in the street, knock a man unconscious with his
fists. According to her conceptions of behavior that was brutal and
vulgar. Drinking came under the same head, and she had Jim Briggs'
word that Bill Wagstaff not only got drunk, but was a "holy terror"
when in that condition. Yet she could not quite associate the twin
traits of brutality and vulgarity with the man sitting close by with
that thoughtful look on his face. His speech stamped him as a man of
education; every line of him showed breeding in all that the word
implies.

Nevertheless, he was "tough." And she had gathered enough of the
West's wide liberality of view in regard to personal conduct to know
that Roaring Bill Wagstaff must be a hard citizen indeed to be
practically ostracized in a place like Cariboo Meadows. She wondered
what Cariboo Meadows would say if it could see her sitting by Bill
Wagstaff's fire at nine in the evening in the heart of the woods. What
would they say when he piloted her home?

In the midst of her reflections Roaring Bill got up.

"Well, we'll make a move," he said, and disappeared abruptly into the
dark.

She heard him moving around at some distance. Presently he was back,
leading three horses. One he saddled. The other two he rigged with
his pack outfit, storing his varied belo