"You'll do, Josh," said he. "I spoke
too quickly. If I hadn't accidentally been thrust into the
innermost secrets of your toilet I'd never have suspected." He
looked the Westerner over with gentle, friendly patronage. "Yes,
you'll do. You look fairly well at a glance--and a man's clothes
rarely get more than that."
Craig released his laugh upon his fastidious friend's judicial
seriousness. "The trouble with you, Grant, is you've never lived a
human life. You've always been sheltered and pampered, lifted in
and out of bed by valets, had a suit of clothes for every hour in
the day. I don't see how it is I happen to like you." And in
Craig's face and voice there was frankly the condescension of
superior to undoubted inferior.
Arkwright seemed to be wavering between resentment and amused
disdain. Then he remembered the circumstances of their first
acquaintance--those frightful days in the Arizona desert, without
food, with almost no water, and how this man had been absolute
ruler of the party of lost and dying men; how he had forced them
to march on and on, with entreaties, with curses, with blows
finally; how he had brought them to safety--all as a matter of
course, without any vanity or boasting--had been leader by divine
right of strength of body and soul.
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