Mic-co held out his hand with a quiet smile. Whatever his searching
eyes had found in the haggard face of his young guest was reflected in
his greeting.

"You are very welcome," he said simply.

"No," said Carl steadily, "I may not take your hand, sir, until you
know me for what I am. There are none worse. I have been through the
mire of hell itself. I have dishonorably betrayed a kinsman in the
hope of gold. I had thought to kill. Only a freak of fate has stayed
my hand. And there is more that I may not tell--"

[Illustration: "No, I may not take your hand."]

"So?" said Mic-co quietly.

Flushing, Carl took the outstretched hand.

"I--I thank you," he said, and looked away.

CHAPTER XLI

IN MIC-CO'S LODGE

The rooms of Mic-co's lodge opened, in the fashion of the old Pompeian
villas, upon a central court roofed only by the Southern sky. This
court, floored with split logs, covered with bearskin rugs and
furnished in handmade chairs of twisted palmetto and a rude table,
years back Mic-co and his Indian aides had built above a clear, lazy
stream. Now the stream crept beneath the logs to a quiet open pool in
the center where lilies and grasses grew, and thence by its own channel
under the logs again and out. Storm coverings of buckskin were rolled
above the outer windows and above the doorways which opened into the
court.

Here, when the moon rose over the lonely lodge and glinted peacefully
in the tilled pool, Mic-co listened to the tale of his young guest. It
was a record of bodily abuse, of passion and temptation, which few men
may live to tell, but Mic-co neither condoned nor condemned. He smoked
and listened.

"Let us make a compact," he said with his quiet smile. "I may question
without reserve. You may withhold what you will. That is fair?"

"Yes."

"Have you ever endured hardship of any kind?"

"I have hunted in the Arctics," said Carl. "There was a time when food
failed. We lived for weeks on reindeer moss and rock tripe. I have
been in wild territory with naturalists and hunters. Probably I have
known more adventurous hardship than most men."

Mic-co nodded.

"I fancied so," he said. "What is your favorite painting?" he asked
unexpectedly.

The answer came without an instant's hesitation.

"Paul Potter's 'Bull.'"

"A thing of inherent virility and vigor, intensely masculine!" said
Mic-co with a smile, adding after an interval of thought, "but there is
a dange