A grim landlord, hard creditor, close-fisted patron, and a smileless neighbor who neither gambled nor drank, "Old Hays," as he was called, while yet scarce fifty, had few acquaintances and fewer friends.

There were those who believed that his domestic infelicities were the result of his unsympathetic nature; it never occurred to any one (but himself probably) that they might have been the cause.

In those Sierran altitudes, as elsewhere, the belief in original sin--popularly known as "pure cussedness"-- dominated and overbore any consideration of passive, impelling circumstances or temptation, unless they had been actively demonstrated with a revolver.
The passive expression of harshness, suspicion, distrust, and moroseness was looked upon as inherent wickedness.
The storm raged violently as Hays emerged from the last of a long range of outbuildings and sheds, and crossed the open space between him and the farmhouse.

Before he had reached the porch, with its scant shelter, he had floundered through a snowdrift, and faced the full fury of the storm.

But the snow seemed to have glanced from his hard angular figure as it had from his roof-ridge, for when he entered the narrow hall-way his pilot jacket was unmarked, except where a narrow line of powdered flakes outlined the seams as if worn.