“Why, it wasn’t drawing-room life in a Colorado camp in those days, anyway, and the older crowd were a pretty rough lot, all of them. Oscar Svenson was better than most, generally. But he would have his times of being drunk and disorderly, and he was such a big fellow and so strong that when he got violent the camp generally knew it. I can remember once when I was a little fellow sitting in the corner of the saloon when he had one of his fits. He was a giant, a head taller than I am, with a great mane of hair all over his head, growing down the nape of his neck in a thick mat under his shirt.” Mrs. Simmons started, and twisted her hands nervously. But she controlled herself. “Go on!” “When he was drunk, he didn’t shoot--that wasn’t his way. He would use his knife, or take up a man in his arms and crush him like a bear with his two hands. That day--but, pshaw! It’s all nonsense, my sitting here and telling you fool stories to make you creepy. The rain has stopped. I’ll tell Tom to harness up, and we’ll drive over to the Country Club to see if they’ve got the election returns yet. Come, dear! Try to be strong and patient.” “No! I shall not go out to-night one single step. I can’t get that cry out of my head, and I should hear it worse if I were away from the house. Tell me about that terrible old man. Did he kill a man before your eyes?” “I hate to have you think of him so. He gave me everything, even _you_.” She smiled forlornly. “He was different in nature from us tame folk in the States. He came from a people that drink deep and have fiery passions,--big-boned, strong-hearted people, as gentle as women and as savage as bulls. I’ve seen him--” “What makes you stop so short, when you are just ready to tell something? I want to hear the worst thing you remember.” He stammered and hunted for an excuse. “Come, come. It’s all rot. They tell stories about men. Such a fellow as old Oscar Svenson you must make allowances for, take the good with the bad. There were plenty of better men than he at his worst, but few as good as he at his best. You can’t line such men up with meeting-house folk. I’ll tell you how he saved the Irish family off Keepsake trail, all alone. But it is stifling here. Come out to the terrace, now the rain has stopped.” There they sat together on a bench in the corner of the terrace, while he told the story of old Oscar’s magnificent courage and will. The big Norwegian had ploughed his way ten miles up the mountains in a blinding snowstorm to carry food to a woman and some children. The woman’s husband was too cowardly to leave the camp. And when old Oscar had reached the cabin, finding one child sick, he had gone back to the camp for medicine. As Simmons told the story, the stars came out in the soft summer heavens; the damp odor of cut grass filled the air. The parched earth, having drunk, breathed forth. But the woman’s tense gaze never softened. When he had finished, she said: