quiring the class
psychology good and fast. Did you ever think of anybody but yourself?
Have I ever betrayed symptoms of idiocy? Do you think it natural or
even likely for me to raise the devil in a business affair like this
out of sheer malice? Don't I generally have a logical basis for any
position I take? Yet you don't wait or ask for any explanation from
_me_. You stand instinctively with the crowd that has swept you off
your feet in the last six months. You take another man's word that
it's all right and I'm all wrong, without waiting to hear my side of
it. And the petty-larceny incident of my knocking down two or three
men and being under arrest as much as thirty minutes looms up before
you as the utter depths of disgrace. Disgrace to you! It's all
you--you! How do you suppose it strikes me to have my wife take sides
against me on snap judgment like that? It shows a heap of faith and
trust and loyalty, doesn't it? Oh, it makes me real proud and glad of
my mate. It does. By thunder, if Granville had ever treated me as it
tried to treat you one time, according to your own account, I'd wipe my
feet on them at every opportunity."

"If you'd explain," Hazel began hesitatingly. She was thoroughly
startled at the smoldering wrath that flared out in this speech of his.
She bitterly resented being talked to in that fashion. It was unjust.
Particularly that last fling. And she was not taking sides. She
refused to admit that--even though she had a disturbing consciousness
that her attitude could scarcely be construed otherwise.

"I'll explain nothing," Bill flashed stormily. "Not at this stage of
the game. I'm through explaining. I'm going to act. I refuse to be
raked over the coals like a naughty child, and then asked to tell why I
did it. I'm right, and when I know I'm right I'll go the limit. I'm
going to take the kinks out of this Free Gold deal inside of
forty-eight hours. Then I'm through with Granville. Hereafter I
intend to fight shy of a breed of dogs who lose every sense of square
dealing when there is a bunch of money in sight. I shall be ready to
leave here within a week. And I want you to be ready, too."

"I won't," she cried, on the verge of hysterics. "I won't go back to
that cursed silence and loneliness. You made this trouble here, not I.
I won't go back to Pine River, or the Klappan. I won't, I tell you!"

Bill stared at her moodily for a second.

"Just as you please," he