“Cheer up!  Why, man, you act like a loser.  Don’t you realize that we’ve won?  Don’t you understand that the Midas is yours?  And the whole world with it?”

“Won?” echoed the miner.  “What do you know about it, Bill?  The Midas—­the world—­what good are they?  You’re wrong.  I’ve lost—­ yes—­I’ve lost everything she taught me, and by some damned trick of Fate she was there to see me do it.  Now, go away; I want to sleep.”

He sank upon the bed with its tangle of blankets and was unconscious before the lawyer had covered him over.

There he lay like a dead man till late in the afternoon, when Dextry and Slapjack came in from the hills, answering Wheaton’s call, and fell upon him hungrily.  They shook Roy into consciousness with joyous riot, pommelling him with affectionate roughness till he rose and joined with them stiffly.  He bathed and rubbed the soreness from his muscles, emerging physically fit.  They made him recount his adventures to the tiniest detail, following his description of the fight with absorbed interest till Dextry broke into mournful complaint: 

“I’d have give my half of the Midas to see you bust him.  Lord, I’d have screeched with soopreme delight at that.”

“Why didn’t you gouge his eyes out when you had him crippled?” questioned Slapjack, vindictively.  “I’d ‘a’ done it.”

Dextry continued:  “They tell me that when he was arrested he swore in eighteen different languages, each one more refreshin’ly repulsive an’ vig’rous than the precedin’.  Oh, I have sure missed a-plenty to-day, partic’lar because my own diction is gettin’ run down an’ skim-milky of late, showin’ sad lack of new idees.  Which I might have assim’lated somethin’ robustly original an’ expressive if I’d been here.  No, sir; a nose-bag full of nuggets wouldn’t have kept me away.”

“How did it sound when she busted?” insisted the morbid Simms, but Glenister refused to discuss his combat,

“Come on, Slap,” said the old prospector, “let’s go down-town.  I’m so het up I can’t set still, an’ besides, mebbe we can get the story the way it really happened, from somebody who ain’t bound an’ gagged an’ chloroformed by such unbecomin’ modesties.  Roy, don’t never go into vawdyville with them personal episodes, because they read about as thrillin’ as a cook-book.  Why, say, I’ve had the story of that fight from four different fellers already, none of which was within four blocks of the scrimmage, an.’ they’re all diff’rent an’ all better ’n your account.”

Now that Glenister’s mind had recovered some of its poise he realized what he had done.

“I was a beast, an animal,” he groaned, “and that after all my striving.  I wanted to leave that part behind, I wanted to be worthy of her love and trust even though I never won it, but at the first test I am found lacking.  I have lost her confidence, yes—­and what is worse, infinitely worse, I have lost my own.  She’s always seen me at my worst,” he went on, “but I’m not that kind at bottom, not that kind.  I want to do what’s right, and if I have another chance I will, I know I will.  I’ve been tried too hard, that’s all.”