Page:Rowland--The Mountain of Fears.djvu/236

  of that high-bred, nervous type, vacillating in little things, but, deeper, of the resistance of chilled steel; like the bulkheads in the ward-room of a battle-ship, white and gold on the surface, but able to stand the pressure of hundreds of tons. If the petty aggressions of Deshay had all been combined into a solid weight, requiring a forceful resistance, he could no more have held Claud than he could have held a handful of guncotton detonated in his clenched fist; that is, he could not have done so at first, and his animal cunning told him this, so that he began by accustoming his victim to yield in minor matters until he had given him the yielding habit; but as I watched the whole thing I was convinced that Deshay was too crude a production and too lacking in finesse to continue his course successfully, and I awaited the denouement with interest. Deshay had already shown his lack of cleverness by not taking the trouble to conceal the aversion that he had come to feel for Dixie, and the silent hate of the dog for him was a [ 220 ]