Now, Borax O'Rourke, while a low, vulgar, border ruffian, had what even the lowest of his kind generally appear to possess: a lingering sense of respect for a good woman. Until the night of the attack upon her by the hoboes in the railroad yard, he had never dared to presume to the extent of speaking to Donna Corblay, even when paying for his meals, although the democracy of San Pasqual would not have construed speech at such a time as a breach of convention. For there were no angels in San Pasqual; the town was merely sunk in a moral lethargy, and the line of demarcation in matters of rectitude was drawn between those who stole and had killed their man, and those who had not. All the lesser sins were looked upon tolerantly as indigenous to the soil, and as Borax O'Rourke had never been accused of theft and had never killed his man (he had been in two arguments, however, and had winged his man both times, the winger and the wingee subsequently shaking hands and declaring a truce), he was not considered beyond the pale. Had he spoken to Donna she readily would have comprehended that he merely desired to be neighborly; she would have inquired the latest news from the borax works at Keeler and doubtless would have sold him a hat. Nevertheless, for a long time, Borax O'Rourke had nursed a secret passion for the eating-house cashier, a passion, that never could have been dignified by the term “love” (Borax was not equal to that) but rather an animal-like desire for possession. There was considerable of the abysmal brute in Borax. He would have been voted quite a Lochinvar in the days when men procured their wives by right of discovery and the ability to retain possession, and had he dared, he would have made love to Donna in his bearlike way. Hence, as in the case of all pure women in frontier towns, where rough men foregather, Donna's easily discernible purity had been her most salient protection, and beyond such bulwarks Borax O'Rourke had never dared to venture. It had been a shock, therefore, to Mr. O'Rourke, when he discovered her that August night, crying over a stranger and kissing him. Borax himself was not a bad-looking fellow, in a rough out-o'-doors sort of way, and while he had not been privileged to a close scrutiny of the man whom Donna had kissed, still he believed him to be a rough-and-ready individual like himself, and quite naturally the thought occurred to Borax that he, too, might not have been unwelcome, had he but possessed sufficient courage to make a cautious advance.