y he found
his justification; no mercy is possible for such brutes.
Subconsciously he was always striving to reinforce it; as if the voice
of that logical faculty which he admired as his highest attribute were
always whispering advice, reminding him: "This is your strong point.
It is the only firm ground you stand on. You can't possibly hope to
justify yourself to other people; but if you don't justify yourself to
yourself, then you are truly done for."

And he used to think: "I have justified myself to myself all along. I
was never one who considered human life so sacred as some try to make
out. Why should it be? Aren't we proved to be animals--along with the
rest? The parsons own it nowadays themselves, allowing a man's soul to
be what God counts most important, but not going so far as to say any
animal's soul isn't immortal too. Then where's the sacredness? If it's
right to kill a vicious dog or a poisonous snake, how is it so wrong
to out a man that won't behave himself?"

Insensibly this consideration had the greatest possible effect on his
conduct. Without advancing step by step in a reasoned progress, he
understood that any one holding his views on human life generally
should not attach an excessive value to his own individual life. He
must carry his life lightly, and be ready to lay it down without a lot
of fuss. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. He acted on the
maxim, risking his life freely, courting dangers that he would have
avoided in the days before the day on which he executed Mr. Barradine.

Executed--yes. But God would not have authorized him, although Judge
Lynch would. God would say: "It must be left to Me. I will attend to
it in My own good time. From My point of view perhaps, keeping the man
alive is in truth his punishment, and to kill him is to let him off.
You have come blundering with your finite intelligence into the
department of omniscient wisdom. Instead of interpreting My laws, you
have set up a law of your own invention."

And Dale sometimes thought: "But there isn't any God. All that is my
eye and my elbow. I believed it once, but I shall never believe it
again."

His thoughts about God's laws were curious, and baffling to himself.
They had been always there, always active, but in a manner secondary
and faint when compared with his thoughts about his infringement of
men's laws. Faith in God had seemed to be quite gone. It used to
permeate his entire mind; and yet it dropp