Fiercely he caught up the clippings, struck a match, and with a grim
smile watched them as they curled up into flame and crumbled into ash.
What a lie was life, what a malformed thing was justice, what a monster
of iniquity the man-fabricated thing called law!
And again he found himself speaking, as if the dead Englishman himself
were repeating the words, "It's devilish queer, old top--and funny!"
XIV
A quarter of an hour later, with Mary Josephine at his side, he was
walking down the green slope toward the Saskatchewan. In that direction
lay the rims of timber, the shimmering valley, and the broad pathways
that opened into the plains beyond.
The town was at their backs, and Keith wanted it there. He wanted to
keep McDowell, and Shan Tung, and Miriam Kirkstone as far away as
possible, until his mind rode more smoothly in the new orbit in which
it was still whirling a bit unsteadily. More than all else he wanted to
be alone with Mary Josephine, to make sure of her, to convince himself
utterly that she was his to go on fighting for. He sensed the nearness
and the magnitude of the impending drama. He knew that today he must
face Shan Tung, that again he must go under the battery of McDowell's
eyes and brain, and that like a fish in treacherous waters he must swim
cleverly to avoid the nets that would entangle and destroy him.
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