Page:Caroline Lockhart--The full of the Moon.djvu/185

 In his efforts to be just, Bob told himself over and over that it was unfair and un-American to urge it against Ben that his sphere was so radically different from Nan's and his own. He tried hard to think of this courageous, handsome but ill-mannered cowpuncher as a social equal, but his life-long training was against it. He failed dismally, and to scourge himself for his undemocratic prejudices he dwelt humbly upon his own short-comings. He told himself that he was a dawdler, a useless member of society and perhaps a coward. He was not sure that he would have had the courage to have stood up there as Ben had done and defied an hysterical Mexican to fill him full of holes. Also he was afraid of snakes—they made him shudder, shiver—and his antipathy for spiders was nearly as strong.

He was helpless, too, he told himself; he was not resourceful and able to cope with emergencies—like Riley, for instance. Riley could shoe a horse and mend a wagon with a twist of baling-wire and cook and tell how fast a horse was travelling from the track he