Corliss made a gesture of depreciation.

“No! no!  From what he said you must have behaved splendidly.  And I was most pleased to hear.  It must be great to give the brute the rein now and again, and healthy, too.  Great for us who have wandered from the natural and softened to sickly ripeness.  Just to shake off artificiality and rage up and down! and yet, the inmost mentor, serene and passionless, viewing all and saying:  ’This is my other self.  Behold!  I, who am now powerless, am the power behind and ruleth still!  This other self, mine ancient, violent, elder self, rages blindly as the beast, but ’tis I, sitting apart, who discern the merit of the cause and bid him rage or bid him cease!’ Oh, to be a man!”

Corliss could not help a humoring smile, which put Frona upon defence at once.

“Tell me, Vance, how did it feel?  Have I not described it rightly?  Were the symptoms yours?  Did you not hold aloof and watch yourself play the brute?”

He remembered the momentary daze which came when he stunned the man with his fist, and nodded.

“And pride?” she demanded, inexorably.  “Or shame?”

“A—­a little of both, and more of the first than the second,” he confessed.  “At the time I suppose I was madly exultant; then afterwards came the shame, and I tossed awake half the night.”

“And finally?”

“Pride, I guess.  I couldn’t help it, couldn’t down it.  I awoke in the morning feeling as though I had won my spurs.  In a subconscious way I was inordinately proud of myself, and time and again, mentally, I caught myself throwing chests.  Then came the shame again, and I tried to reason back my self-respect.  And last of all, pride.  The fight was fair and open.  It was none of my seeking.  I was forced into it by the best of motives.  I am not sorry, and I would repeat it if necessary.”

“And rightly so.”  Frona’s eyes were sparkling.  “And how did Mr. St. Vincent acquit himself?”

“He? . . . .  Oh, I suppose all right, creditably.  I was too busy watching my other self to take notice.”

“But he saw you.”

“Most likely so.  I acknowledge my negligence.  I should have done better, the chances are, had I thought it would have been of interest to you—­pardon me.  Just my bungling wit.  The truth is, I was too much of a greenhorn to hold my own and spare glances on my neighbors.”

So Corliss went away, glad that he had not spoken, and keenly appreciating St. Vincent’s craft whereby he had so adroitly forestalled adverse comment by telling the story in his own modest, self-effacing way.

Two men and a woman!  The most potent trinity of factors in the creating of human pathos and tragedy!  As ever in the history of man, since the first father dropped down from his arboreal home and walked upright, so at Dawson.  Necessarily, there were minor factors, not least among which was Del Bishop, who, in his aggressive way, stepped in and accelerated things.  This came about in a trail-camp on the way to Miller Creek, where Corliss was bent on gathering in a large number of low-grade claims which could only be worked profitably on a large scale.