Page:Edison Marshall--The voice of the pack.djvu/61

Rh or his weakness, and possibly be kind enough to deplore his death. He never need fear any actual expressions of scorn. Lennox had a natural refinement that forbade it. Dan never knew a more intense desire than that to make good in the eyes of these mountain men. Far back, they had been his own people; and all men know that the upholding of a family's name and honor has been one of the greatest impulses for good conduct and great deeds since the beginnings of civilization. But Dan pushed the hope out of his mind at once. He knew what his destiny was in these quiet hills. And it was true that he began to have secret regrets that he had come. But it was n't that he was disappointed in the land that was opening up before him. It fulfilled every promise. His sole reason for regrets lay in the fact that now the whole mountain world would know of the decay that had come upon his people. Perhaps it would have been better to have left them to their traditions.

He had never dreamed that the fame of his grandfather had spread so far. For the first ten miles, Dan listened to stories,—legends of a cold nerve that simply could not be shaken; of a powerful, tireless physique; of moral and physical strength that was seemingly without limit. Then, as the foothills began to give