"
Neale confessed his offer to Ruby and Larry, and then his own
impulse.
"Ruby called me a fool--crazy--a sky-pilot. Maybe I am."
"Sky-pilot! Well, the little devil!" laughed Hough. "I'll gamble she
called you that before you declared yourself."
"Before, yes. I tell you, Hough, I have crazy impulses. They've
grown on me out here. They burst like lightning out of a clear sky.
I would have done just that thing for Ruby.... Mad, you say? ...
Why, man, she's not hopeless! There was something deep behind that
impulse. Strange--not understandable! I'm at the mercy of every hour
I spend here. Benton has got into my blood. And I see how Benton is
a product of this great advance of progress--of civilization--the U.
P. R. We're only atoms in a force no one can understand.... Look at
Reddy King. That cowboy was set--fixed like stone in his character.
But Benton has called to the worst and wildest in him. He'll do
something terrible. Mark what I say. We'll all do something
terrible. You, too, Place Hough, with all your cold, implacable
control. The moment will come, born out of this abnormal time. I
can't explain, but I feel. There's a work-shop in this hell of
Benton. Invisible, monstrous, and nameless! ... Nameless like the
new graves dug every day out here on the desert.
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