346 THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS



happier than I've ever been before. I'm glad we've
been through it. There are no doubts ahead. I've got
you both."
  "About him," said Samson, thoughtfully. "Mlay I
tell you something which, although it's a thing in your
own heart, you have never quite known"
  She nodded, and he went on.
  "The thing which you call fascination in me was
really just a proxy, Drennie. You were liking qualities
in me that were really his qualities. Just because you
had known him only in gentle guise, his finish blinded
you to his courage. Because he could turn 'to woman
the heart of a woman,' you failed to see that under it
was the 'iron and fire.' You thought you saw those
qualities in me, because I wore my bark as shaggy as
that scaling hickory over there. When he was getting
anonymous threats of death every morning, he didn't
mention them to you. He talked of teas and dances. I
know his danger was real, because they tried to have me
kill him-and if I'd been the man they took me for, I
reckon I'd have done it. I was mad to my marrow that
night-for a minute. I don't hold a brief fox Wilfred,
but I know that you liked me first for qualities which
he has as strongly as I-and more strongly. He's a
braver man than I, because, though raised to gentle
things, when you ordered him into the fight, he was
there. He never turned back, or flickered. I was raised
on raw meat and gunpowder, but he went in without
training."
  The girl's eyes grew grave and thoughtful, and for
the rest of the way she rode in silence.
  There were transformations, too, in the house of