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"You always was a strong-headed man, Bruce, that would have things his way. So be it. And I guess, being a man myself that stands on his own two legs, I can say it all in one mouthful: You and me has always been friends. Are we that yet?"

Now for the first time Lynette Brooke, looking in from the adjoining room through a door just ajar, saw Timber-Wolf clearly, his face under his big hat unhidden as he turned a little in order to look straight at Taggart. He did not see her, and she looked her fill at him; he gave her a start of surprise, and after that start came a surge of admiration. He was a young, blond giant of a man, eyes very blue and laughing and innocent! And wide-spaced! A man no older than Babe Deveril, one who bore himself like some old buccaneer or Norse Viking, before men who would have given much for the courage and the power to fly at his bared white throat and drag the life out of him; a man who overflowed with his superabundant vital energy, and who stamped his own character, through sheer force of unbroken will, upon others about him; a man who believed in himself and who was at once implacable and gay. Heartless he looked, and yet full of the dancing joy of life. She felt herself on the instant both strongly drawn to him and frightened; the mad vision presented itself to her of herself in his mighty arms. And the odd tremor which shook her body, as she whipped back with flaming face, was compounded of thrill and shiver. He confused her; at once she was amazed that he could be like this and convinced that the owner of that glorious voice which she had heard pulsing out across the fields of night could be no jot different.... While she drew back to a dim corner of the room, she managed not to lose sight of him.