"People are always tracing resemblances. There's nothing to that. But suppose his life _was_ irregular--years ago. This isn't Boston. It used to be the fringe of civilization. Men did as they pleased in the early days. We don't ask a man up here what he has been, but what he is. You ought to know that by this time." "This wasn't in the early days. It was five years ago, when Macdonald was examining the Kamatlah coal-field. I'm told he sends a check down the river once a month for the woman." "All the more credit to him if he does." Diane rose and looked stormily down at her friend. "You're about as broad as a clam, Gordon. Can't you see that even if it's true, all that is done with? It is a part of his past--and it's finished--trodden under foot. It hasn't a thing to do with Sheba." "I don't agree with you. A man can't cut loose entirely from his past. It is a part of him--and Macdonald's past isn't good enough for Sheba O'Neill." Diane tapped her little foot impatiently on the floor. "Do you know many men whose pasts are good enough for their wives? Are you a plaster-cast saint yourself? You know perfectly well that men trample down their pasts and begin again when they are married. Colby Macdonald is good enough for any woman alive if he loves her enough." "You don't know him." "I know him far better than you do. He is the biggest man I know, and now that he is in love with a good woman he'll rise to his chance." "She ought to be told the truth about Meteetse and her boy," he insisted doggedly. "I'm not going to disturb her with a lot of old maids' gossip. That's flat." "But if I prove to you that it isn't gossip." Mrs. Paget lost her temper completely. "Does the Government pay you to mind other people's business, Gordon?" she snapped. "I wouldn't be working for the Government then, but for Sheba O'Neill." "And for Gordon Elliot. You'd be doing underhand work for him too. Don't forget that. You can't do it. You're not that kind of a man. It isn't in you to go muckraking in the past of the man Sheba is going to marry." Elliot rose and looked across at the blue-ribbed mountains. His square jaw was set when he turned it back toward Diane. "She isn't going to marry him if I can help it," he said quietly. He walked out of the gate and down the walk toward his hotel. A message was waiting for him there from his chief in Seattle. It called him down the river on business. CHAPTER XIV GENEVIEVE MALLORY TAKES A HAND Inside of an hour the news of the engagement of Macdonald was all over Kusiak. It was through a telephone receiver that the gossip was buzzed to Mrs. Mallory by a friend who owed her a little stab. The voice of Genevieve Mallory registered faint amusement, but as soon as she had hung up, her face fell into haggard lines. She had staked a year of her waning youth on winning the big mining man of Kusiak, together with all the money that she had been able to scrape up for a campaign outfit. Moreover, she liked him.