the legend that circled it. "Do you or any other man profess to say that you know what the right—is a man's personal, legitimate right, apart from the law?"
His tone brought the blood stingingly to Tempest's face.
"There was once a man who said, 'Stand fast in the faith. Quit you like men. Be strong.' I can't call to mind any law of the present day which tries to take away our personal, legitimate right to do that."
Dick looked at him in slow amusement.
"You haven't changed much," he said. "You never would remember that there are so many ways for a man to go rotten."
He kicked aside the pile of blankets on the floor, and went out to the night that stirred with waking senses to meet the dawn. The stars were pale. The tall trees were folded close in the hush of sleep. The tread of the coming years passed heavily down the road of the river—years that would see the last fruitful waiting-places of Canada unroll, to lie in the hands of—whom? Dick glanced at the thin strip of pallor that was the tepee. Would they go to the coarse hands of such as that round-eyed baby? Or would the firm, nervous hands of sons born to such men as Tempest take them? And when he and the manner of law which he represented were swept away by the march of time, would Tempest's gathering-call be the word that knit up the centuries?
Tempest's voice seemed to sound it again in his brain; a quiet voice; low, but great with inexorable, unbreakable resolve.
"Quit you like men. Be strong!"
A bird-note drifted thinly out of the heavy timber. The wind of dawn smote the pine-trees suddenly. They swayed and shivered, with their myriad little needles chattering into wordless speech like frightened monkeys.
But Dick, taking the chill breath on his forehead, heard what they said; over and over again, with chuckles of laughter.
"There are—so many ways for a man—to go rotten."
