Page:The Night Born (London,1913).djvu/39

knees. I 'm not that sort. I leave it to you, stranger. Do I look like a man?'

"She did n't. She was a woman, a beautiful, nut-brown woman, with a sturdy, health-rounded woman's body and with wonderful deep-blue woman's eyes.

"'Ain't I woman?' she demanded. 'I am. I 'm 'most all woman, and then some. And the funny thing is, though I 'm night-born in everything else, I 'm not when it comes to mating. I reckon that kind likes its own kind best. That 's the way it is with me, anyway, and has been all these years.'

"'You mean to tell me—' I began.

"'Never,' she said, and her eyes looked into mine with the straightness of truth. 'I had one husband, only—him I call the Ox; and I reckon he 's still down in Juneau running the hash-joint. Look him up, if you ever get back, and you 'll find he 's rightly named.'

"And look him up I did, two years afterward. He was all she said—solid and stolid, the Ox—shuffling around and waiting on the tables.

"'You need a wife to help you,' I said.

"'I had one once,' was his answer.

"'Widower?'