should be restrained.

He, however, began to apply himself to the task given to him with his
usual conscientiousness of duty, and presently acquired a certain manual
dexterity in the operation. It was "good fun" to throw the cast-off
husks into the mighty unfathomable void before him, and watch them
linger with suspended gravity in mid air for a moment--apparently
motionless--until they either lost themselves, a mere vanishing black
spot in the thin ether, or slid suddenly at a sharp angle into unknown
shadow. How deuced odd for him to be sitting here in this fashion! It
would be something to talk of hereafter, and yet,--he stopped--it was
not at all in the line of that characteristic adventure, uncivilized
novelty, and barbarous freedom which for the last month he had sought
and experienced. It was not at all like his meeting with the grizzly
last week while wandering in a lonely canyon; not a bit in the line of
his chance acquaintance with that notorious ruffian, Spanish Jack, or
his witnessing with his own eyes that actual lynching affair at Angels.
No! Nor was it at all characteristic, according to his previous ideas of
frontier rural seclusion--as for instance the Pike County cabin of the
family where he stayed one night, and where the handsome daughter asked
him what his Christian name was. No! These two young women were very
unlike her; they seemed really quite the equals of his family and
friends in England,--perhaps more attractive,--and yet, yes, it was
this very attractiveness that alarmed his inbred social conservatism
regarding women. With a man it was very different; that alert, active,
intelligent husband, instinct with the throbbing life of his saw-mill,
creator and worker in one, challenged his unqualified trust and
admiration.

He had become conscious for the last minute or two of thinking rapidly