"The Northern Stonies? Did you find them easy to get on with?"

"They knew some interesting things," Clarke answered dryly. "I went
there to study."

"Ah!" said the agent. "What plain folk, for want of a better name,
call the occult. But it's fortunate that there's a barred door between
white men and the Indian's mysticism."

"It has been opened to a white man once or twice."

"Oh, yes! He stepped through into the darkness and never came out
again. There was an instance I could mention."

"Civilized people would have no use for him afterward," Harding broke
in. "We want sane, normal men on this continent. Neurotics, hoodoos
and fakirs are worse than the plague; there's contagion in their
fooling."

"How would you define them? Those who don't fit in with your ideas of
the normal?" Clarke sneered.

"I know a clean, straight man when I meet him, and that's enough for
me," Harding retorted.

"I imagine that cleverer people are now and then deceived," said
Clarke, moving away as he spoke.

"That's a man I want to keep clear of," Harding declared. "There's
something wrong about him; he's not wholesome!"