ABSTRACT
… Denison often wishes he could live those seven months in Leasse over again, and let this, his latter-day respectability, go hang; because to men like him respectability means tradesmen’s bills, and a deranged liver, and a feeling that he will die in a bed with his boots off, and be pawed about by shabby ghouls smelling of gin. There, it is true, he had no boots to die in had his time come suddenly, but he did not feel the loss of them except when he went hunting wild pigs with Kusis in the mountains. And though he had no boots, he was well-off in more important things – to wit, ten pounds of negro-head tobacco, lots of fishing tackle, a Winchester rifle, heaps to eat and drink, and the light heart of a boy. What more could a young fool wish for – in the Northwest Pacific?
