There seemed to reside
in the man a natural quality of uprightness, a moral stoutness of soul
that lifted him above petty judgments. One did not like or dislike
Lawanne for what he did or said so much as for what he suggested as
being inherent within himself.
There was a little of that quality, also, about Charlie Mills. He
worked in the timber with a fierce energy. His dark face glistened
with sweat-beads from morning till night. His black hair stood in
wisps and curls, its picturesque disorder heightened by a trick he had
of running his fingers through it when he paused for a minute to take
breath, to look steadfastly across at the slide-scarred granite face
of the north valley wall, with a wistful look in his eyes.
"Those hills," he said once abruptly to Hollister, "they were here
long before we came. They'll be here long after we're gone. What a
helpless, crawling, puny insect man is, anyway. A squirrel on his
wheel in a cage."
It was a protesting acceptance of a stark philosophy, Hollister
thought, a cry against some weight that bore him down, the momentary
revealing of some conflict in which Mills foresaw defeat, or had
already suffered defeat.
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