He knew his weakness, his incapacity to cope with the
larger odds of life, a watcher not an actor in the battle, and
understanding that his failure had come from his own inadequacy he
wished that he might die.
On one side the eminence broke away in a sheer fall to the earth below.
At its base a scattering of sundered bowlders and fragments lay, veiled
by a growth of small, bushy shrubs to which a spring gave nourishment.
Behind this the long spine of the rock tapered back to the parent ridge
that ran, a bristling rampart, east and west. He sat down on the edge
of the precipice watching the trail. He had no idea how long he
remained thus. A shadow falling across him brought him back to life.
He turned and saw Courant standing a few feet from him.
Without speech or movement they eyed one another. In his heart each
hated the other, but in David the hate had come suddenly, the hysteric
growth of a night's anguish. The mountain man's was tempered by a
process of slow-firing to a steely inflexibility. He hated David that
he had ever been his rival, that he had ever thought to lay claim to
the woman who was his, that he had ever aspired to her, touched her,
desired her.
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