Had he not prepared himself for a shock, his surprise must surely have betrayed him, for even the Snow-Burner could not look upon Shanty Moir without amazement. To Reivers, the first impression that came was that he was looking at something as raw and primitive as the sources of life itself. Shanty Moir had little or nothing in common with the other men in the room. He was even shaped differently. He belonged, so it seemed to Reivers, to the age of the saber-tooth tiger, the long-haired mammoth, and a diet of roots and raw flesh. There was about him the suggestion of man just risen to the dignity of an upright position. His body was enormous—longer, wider, denser than a man’s body should be; the legs beneath it short and bowed. There was no neck that could be seen. His arms seemed to begin close up to the ears, and ran downward in curves, like giant calipers, the hands even with the knees. The head fitted the body, squat and enormous, the forehead running abruptly back from the brows, and the face so flat and bony that the features seemed merely to dent it. The brow-bones came down and half hid the small eyes; the nose was small, but a pair of great nostrils ran back in the skull; the mouth was huge, yet it seemed small, and there was more of the head below it than above. Iron Hair was well nicknamed. His hair was probably three inches long, and it stood out straight from his head—black, wiry, menacing. Reivers, with his foolish grin growing larger on his face, appraised Moir with considerable admiration. Here was the real thing, the pure, unadulterated man-animal, unweakened, untouched by effeminising civilisation. This man knew no more law or conscience than the ancient cave-tiger, whose only dictates sprang from appetite. Reivers had rejected morals because it pleased him to run contrary to all the rest of the world; this man never knew that right or wrong existed. What his appetites told him to take he took as a matter of course. And it was written in his face that his appetites were as abnormally powerful as was he. Reivers had been a leader of men because his mind was stronger than the minds of the men with whom he had dealt. This man was a leader because of the blind, unintelligent force that was in him. And inwardly the fighting man in Reivers glowed at the prospects of the Titanic clash that would come between them. Shanty Moir as he looked from under his bony brows saw exactly what Reivers wished him to see: a drunken broken squaw-man, so weak that he could not possibly be the slightest source of trouble. Being primitive of mind he listed Reivers at once as helpless. Having done this, nothing could alter his opinion; and Reivers had gained the vantage that he sought. Moir threw back his head and laughed, softly and behind set teeth, when his quick inspection of Reivers was ended.