You may deceive others by an assumption of recklessness, but I feel convinced your true nature is not evil.

It has been warped through some cause which is none of my business.

Let us deal alone with facts.

You are a gambler, a professional gambler, with all that that implies; your life is, of necessity, passed among the most vicious and degrading elements of mining camps, and you do not hesitate even to take human life when in your judgment it seems necessary to preserve your own.

Under this veneer of lawlessness you may, indeed, possess a warm heart, Mr.Hampton; you may be a good fellow, but you are certainly not a model character, even according to the liberal code of the border." "Extremely kind of you to enter my rooms uninvited, and furnish me with this list of moral deficiencies," acknowledged the other with affected carelessness.