This, in turn, might have been due to the fact that he shone so resplendently with women as to cast his fellows in eclipse; for otherwise, in his intercourse with men, he was all that a man could wish.

There was nothing domineering or over-riding about him, while he manifested a good fellowship at least equal to their own.
Yet, having withheld his judgment after listening to Lucile and Harney, Matt McCarthy speedily reached a verdict upon spending an hour with St.
Vincent at Jacob Welse's,--and this in face of the fact that what Lucile had said had been invalidated by Matt's learning of her intimacy with the man in question.

Strong of friendship, quick of heart and hand, Matt did not let the grass grow under his feet.

"'Tis I'll be takin' a social fling meself, as befits a mimber iv the noble Eldorado Dynasty," he explained, and went up the hill to a whist party in Dave Harney's cabin.

To himself he added, "An' belike, if Satan takes his eye off his own, I'll put it to that young cub iv his." But more than once during the evening he discovered himself challenging his own judgment.