"I think you had better use a little sense, Gordon. I dare say I am
exaggerating the danger. But when you go around with that jaunty,
devil-may-care way of yours, the men think you are looking for
trouble--and you're likely to get it."
"Am I?"
"I know what I'm talking about. Nine out of ten of the men think you
tried to murder Macdonald after you had robbed him and that your nerve
weakened on the job. This seems to some of the most lawless to give
them a moral right to put you out of the way. Anyhow, it is a kind of
justification, according to their point of view. I'm not defending it,
of course. I'm telling you so that you can appreciate your danger."
"You have done your duty, then, Peter."
"But you don't intend to take my advice?"
"I'll tell you what I told you last time when you warned me. I'm going
through with the job I've been hired to do, just as you would stick it
out in my place. I don't think I'm in much danger. Men in general are
law-abiding. They growl, but they don't go as far as murder."
Peter gave him up. After all, the chances were that Gordon was right.
Alaska was not a lawless country. And it might be that the best way to
escape peril was to walk through it with a grin as if it did not exist.
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