most awful bad for that Thoreau man to happen along.'

"'Why?' I asked.

"'So as I could marry him. I do get mighty lonesome at spells.
I'm just a woman--a real woman. I've heard tell of the other
kind of women that gallivanted off like me and did queer
things--the sort that become soldiers in armies, and sailors on
ships. But those women are queer themselves. They're more like
men than women; they look like men and they don't have ordinary
women's needs. They don't want love, nor little children in
their arms and around their knees. I'm not that sort. I leave
it to you, stranger. Do I look like a man?'

"She didn't. She was a woman, a beautiful, nut-brown woman,
with a sturdy, health-rounded woman's body and with wonderful
deep-blue woman's eyes.

"'Ain't I woman?' she demanded. 'I am. I'm 'most all woman, and
then some. And the funny thing is, though I'm night-born in
everything else, I'm not when it comes to mating. I reckon that
kind likes its own kind best. That's the way it is with me,
anyway, and has been all these years.'

"'You mean to tell me--' I began.

"'Never,' she said, and her eyes looked into mine with the
straightness of truth. 'I had one husband, only--him I call the
Ox; and I reckon he's still down in Juneau running the
hash-joint. Look him up, if you ever get back, and you'll find