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Programming
Programming
Principles and Practice
Using C++
Bjarne Stroustrup
./.,· Addison-Wesley
Upper Saddle River, NJ • Boston • Indianapolis • San Francisco
New York • Toronto • Montreal • London • Munich • Paris • Madrid
Capetown • Sydney • Tokyo • Singapore • Mexico City
Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products arc claimed as
trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book. and tl1c publisher was aware of a trademark
claim, the designations have been primed witl1 initial capital letters or in all capitals.
The author and publisher have taken care in the preparation of this book, but make no expressed or im·
plied warran t y of any kind and assume no responsibility for errors or omissioru. No liability is assumed
for incidental or consequential damages in connection witl1 or arising out of the usc of the information or
programs contained herein.
The publisher offers excellent discounts on tllis book when ordered in quantity for bulk purcl!ases or spe
cial sales, wllich may include electronic versions and/or custom covers and content particular to your busi
ness. training goals. marketing focus. and branding interests. For more information. please contact:
International Sales
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Stroustrup, Bjame.
Programming principles and practice using C++ I Bjamc Stroustrup.
P· em.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-321-54372·1 (pbk. : alk. paper) I. C++ (Computer program language) I. Title.
QA76.73.C153S82 2008
005.13'3-dc22
2008032595
AU rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. ll1is publication is protected by copyright, and
permission must be obtained from tl1c publisher prior to any prohibited reproduction, storage in a retrieval
system, or transmission in any form or by any means. electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or
likewise. For information regarding pemlissions, write to:
ISBN-13: 978·0·321·54372·1
ISBN-10: 0-321-54372·6
Text printed in the United States on recycled paper at Courier in Kendallville, Indiana.
Ftrst printing, December 2008
Contents
Preface xxiii
Chapter 0 Notes to the Reader
0.1 The structure of this book 2
0.1. 1 General approach 3
0.1.2 Drills, exercises, etc. 4
0.1.3 What comes after this book? 5
0.2 A philosophy of teaching and learning 6
0.2.1 The order of topics 9
0.2.2 Programming and programming language 10
0.2.3 Portability 11
0.3 Programming and computer science 12
0.4 Creativity and problem solving 12
0.5 Request for feedback 12
0.6 References 13
0.7 Biographies 14
Bjame Stroustrup 14
Lawrence "Pete" Petersen 15
"
vi CONTENTS
2. 1 Programs 44
2.2 T he classic first program 45
2.3 Compilation 47
2.4 Linking 51
2.5 Programming environments 52
Chapter 4 Computation 89
4.1 Computation 90
4.2 Objectives and tools 92
CONTENTS vii
4.3 Expressions 94
4.3.1 Constant expressions 95
4.3.2 Operators 96
4.3.3 Conversions 98
4.4 Statements 99
4.4.1 Selection 101
4.4.2 Iteration 108
4.5 Functions 1 12
4.5.1 Why bother with functions? 114
4.5.2 Function declarations 115
4.6 Vector 1 16
4.6.1 Growing a vector 118
4.6.2 A numeric example 119
4 .6.3 A text example 121
4.7 Language features 123
Chapter 5 Errors 1 31
5. 1 Introduction 132
5.2 Sources of errors 134
5.3 Compile-time errors 134
5.3.1 Syntax errors 135
5.3.2 Type errors 136
.5.3.3 Non-errors 137
5.4 Link-time errors 137
5.5 Run-time errors 138
5.5.1 T he caller deals with errors 140
5.5.2 l11e callee deals with errors 141
5.5.3 Error reporting 143
5.6 Exceptions 144
5.6.1 Bad arguments 145
5.6.2 Range errors 146
5.6.3 Bad input 148
5.6.4 Narrowing errors 151
5.7 Logic errors 152
5.8 Estimation 155
5.9 Debugging 156
5.9.1 Practical debug advice 1S7
5. 10 Pre- and post-conditions 161
5.10.1 Post·conditions 163
5. 1 1 Testing 164
viii CONTENTS
Glossary 1171
Bibliography 1177
Index 1181
Preface
-Admiral Farragut
xxiii
xxiv PREFACE
Why would you want to program? Our civilization runs on software. With·
out understanding software you are reduced to believing in "magic" and will be
locked out of many of the most interesting, profitable, and socially useful techni
cal fields of work. When I talk about programming, I think of the whole spec
trum of computer programs from personal computer applications with G Uls
(graphical user interfaces), through engineering calculations and embedded sys
tems control applications (such as digital cameras, cars, and cell phones), to text
manipulation applications as found in many humanities and business applica
tions. Like mathematics, programming- when done well- is a valuable intellec
tual exercise that sharpens our ability to think. However, thanks to feedback
from the computer, programming is more concrete than most forms of math, and
therefore accessible to more people. It is a way to reach out and change the world
- ideally for the better. Finally, programming can be great fun.
W hy C++? You can't learn to program without a progranmung language,
and C++ directly supports the key concepts and techniques used in real-world
software. C++ is one of the most widely used programming languages, found in
an unsurpassed range of application areas. You fmd C++ applications every·
where from the bottom of the oceans to the surface of Mars. C++ is precisely
and comprehensively defmed by a nonproprietary international standard. Qyal·
ity and/or free implementations are available on every kind of computer. Most of
the programming concepts that you will learn using C++ can be used directly in
other languages, such as C, C#, Fortran, andjava. Fmally, I simply like C++ as
a language for writing elegant and efficient code.
This is not the easiest book on beginning programming; it is not meant to
be. I just aim for it to be the easiest book from which you can learn the basics of
real-world programming. That's quite an ambitious goal because much modern
software relies on techniques considered advanced just a few years ago.
My fundamental assumption is that you want to write programs for the use
of others, and to do so responsibly, providing a decent level of system quality:
that is, I assume that you want to achieve a level of professionalism. Consc·
quently, I chose the topics for this book to cover what is needed to get started
with real-world programming. not just what is easy to teach and learn. If you
need a technique to get basic work done right, I describe it. demonstrate concepts
and language facilities needed to support the technique, provide exercises for it,
and expect you to work on those exercises. If you just want to understand toy
programs, you can get along with far less than I present. On the other hand, I
won't waste your time with material of marginal practical importance. If an idea
is explained here, it's because you'll almost certainly need it.
If your desire is to use the work of others without understanding how things
arc done and witl10ut adding significantly to the code yourself, tills book is not
for you. If so, please consider whether you would be better served by another
book and another language. If that is approximately your view of programming,
please also consider from where you got that view and whether it in fact is adc·
quate for your needs. People often underestimate the complexity of program-
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Language: English
By LOUIS TRACY
THE WINGS OF THE MORNING
THE PILLAR OF LIGHT
THE GREAT MOGUL
THE CAPTAIN OF THE KANSAS
KARL GRIER
THE WHEEL O’ FORTUNE
THE KING OF DIAMONDS
THE RED YEAR
THE MESSAGE
A SON OF THE IMMORTALS
THE STOWAWAY
CYNTHIA’S CHAUFFEUR
THE SILENT BARRIER
MIRABEL’S ISLAND
ONE WONDERFUL NIGHT
THE “MIND THE PAINT” GIRL
THE TERMS OF SURRENDER
The Terms of
Surrender
BY
LOUIS TRACY
Author of
“The Wings of the Morning,” “One Wonderful
Night,” etc., etc.
New York
Edward J. Clode
Publisher
I At “MacGonigal’s” 1
II The Terms of Surrender 18
III Showing How Power Acquired a Limp 34
IV The Sudden Rise of Peter MacGonigal 51
V Wherein Power Travels East 68
VI The Meeting 85
VII The Forty Steps 104
VIII The Step That Counted 124
IX The Chase 144
X Nancy Decides 164
XI Power’s Home-Coming 185
XII After Darkness, Light 205
XIII The Beginning of the Pilgrimage 226
XIV The Wander-Years 249
XV The New Life 270
XVI Power Driven into Wilderness 293
XVII Showing How Power Met a Guide 313
XVIII The Second Generation 331
XIX The Settlement 352
XX The Passing of the Storm 376
AT “MacGONIGAL’S”
“Hullo, Mac!”
“Hullo, Derry!”
“What’s got the boys today? Is there a round-up somewhere?”
“Looks that-a way,” said Mac, grabbing a soiled cloth with an air of
decision, and giving the pine counter a vigorous rub. At best, he was
a man of few words, and the few were generally to the point; yet his
questioner did not seem to notice the noncommittal nature of the
reply, and, after an amused glance at the industrious Mac, quitted
the store as swiftly as he had entered it. But he flung an explanatory
word over his shoulder:
“Guess I’ll see to that plug myself—he’s fallen lame.”
Then John Darien Power swung out again into the vivid sunshine
of Colorado (“vivid” is the correct adjective for sunshine thereabouts
in June about the hour of the siesta) and gently encouraged a
dispirited mustang to hobble on three legs into the iron-roofed lean-
to which served as a stable at “MacGonigal’s.” Meanwhile, the
proprietor of the store gazed after Power’s retreating figure until
neither man nor horse was visible. Even then, in an absent-minded
way, he continued to survey as much of the dusty surface of the
Silver State as was revealed through the rectangle of the doorway, a
vista slightly diminished by the roof of a veranda. What he saw in
the foreground was a whitish brown plain, apparently a desert, but
in reality a plateau, or “park,” as the local name has it, a tableland
usually carpeted not only with grama and buffalo grasses curing on
the stem, but also with flowers in prodigal abundance and of
bewildering varieties. True, in the picture framed by the open door
neither grass-stems nor flowers were visible, unless to the
imaginative eye. There was far too much coming and going of men
and animals across the strip of common which served the purposes
of a main street in Bison to permit the presence of active vegetation
save during the miraculous fortnight after the spring rains, when, by
local repute, green whiskers will grow on a bronze dog. Scattered
about the immediate vicinity were the ramshackle houses of men
employed in the neighboring gold and silver reduction works. The
makeshift for a roadway which pierced this irregular settlement led
straight to MacGonigal’s, and ended there. As every man, woman,
and child in the place came to the store at some time of the day or
night, and invariably applied Euclid’s definition of the nearest way
between two given points, the flora of Colorado was quickly stamped
out of recognition in that particular locality, except during the
irrepressible period when, as already mentioned, the fierce rains of
April pounded the sleeping earth and even bronze dogs into a
frenzied activity. Further, during that year, now nearly quarter of a
century old, there had been no rain in April or May, and precious
little in March. As the ranchers put it, in the figurative language of
their calling, “the hull blame state was burnt to a cinder.”
The middle distance was lost altogether; for the park sloped, after
the manner of plateaus, to a deep valley through which trickled a
railroad and the remains of a river. Some twenty miles away a belt of
woodland showed where Denver was justifying its name by growing
into a city, and forty miles beyond Denver rose the blue ring of the
Rocky Mountains. These details, be it understood, are given with the
meticulous accuracy insisted on by map-makers. In a country where,
every year, the percentage of “perfectly clear” days rises well above
the total of all other sorts of days, and where a popular and never-
failing joke played on the newcomer is to persuade him into taking
an afternoon stroll from Denver to Mount Evans, a ramble of over
sixty miles as the crow flies, the mind refuses to be governed by
theodolites and measuring rods. Indeed, the deceptive clarity of the
air leads to exaggeration at the other end of the scale, because no
true son or daughter of Colorado will walk a hundred yards if there is
a horse or car available for the journey. Obviously, walking is a vain
thing when the horizon and the next block look equidistant.
It may, however, be taken for granted that none of these
considerations accounted for MacGonigal’s fixed stare at the sunlit
expanse. In fact, it is probable that his bulging eyes took in no
special feature of the landscape; for they held an introspective look,
and he stopped polishing the counter as abruptly as he had begun
that much-needed operation when Power entered the store. He
indulged in soliloquy, too, as the habit is of some men in perplexity.
Shifting the cigar he was smoking from the left corner of his wide
mouth to the right one by a dexterous twisting of lips, with tongue
and teeth assisting, he said aloud:
“Well, ef I ain’t dog-goned!”
So, whatever it was, the matter was serious. It was a convention
at Bison that all conversation should be suspended among the
frequenters of MacGonigal’s when the storekeeper remarked that he
was dog-goned. Ears already alert were tuned at once to intensity.
When Mac was dog-goned, events of vital importance to the
community had either happened or were about to happen. Why,
those words, uttered by him, common as they were in the mouths of
others, had been known to stop One-thumb Jake from opening a
jack-pot on a pat straight! Of course, the pot was opened all right
after the social avanlanche heralded by the storekeeper’s epoch-
making ejaculation had rolled past, or Jake’s remaining thumb might
have been shot off during the subsequent row.
Apparently, MacGonigal was thinking hard, listening, too; for he
seemed to be following Power’s movements, and nodded his head in
recognition of the rattle of a chain as the horse was tied to a feeding
trough, the clatter of a zinc bucket when Power drew water from a
tank, and the stamping of hoofs while Power was persuading the
lame mustang to let him bathe and bandage the injured tendons.
Then the animal was given a drink—he would be fed later—and the
ring of spurred boots on the sun-baked ground announced that
Derry was returning to the store.
Power’s nickname, in a land where a man’s baptismal certificate is
generally ignored, was easily accounted for by his second name,
Darien, conferred by a proud mother in memory of a journey across
the Isthmus when, as a girl, she was taken from New York to San
Francisco by the oldtime sea route. The other day, when he stood
for a minute or so in the foyer of the Savoy Hotel in London, waiting
while his automobile was summoned from the courtyard, he seemed
to have lost little of the erect, sinewy figure and lithe carriage which
were his most striking physical characteristics twenty-five years ago;
but the smooth, dark-brown hair had become gray, and was slightly
frizzled about the temples, and the clean-cut oval of his face bore
records of other tempests than those noted by the Weather Bureau.
In walking, too, he moved with a decided limp. At fifty, John Darien
Power looked the last man breathing whom a storekeeper in a
disheveled mining village would hail as “Derry”; yet it may be safely
assumed that his somewhat hard and care-lined lips would have
softened into a pleasant smile had someone greeted him in the
familiar Colorado way. And, when that happened, the friend of
bygone years would be sure that no mistake had been made as to
his identity; for, in those early days, Power always won approval
when he smiled. His habitual expression was one of concentrated
purpose, and his features were cast in a mold that suggested repose
and strength. Indeed, their classic regularity of outline almost
bespoke a harsh nature were it not for the lurking humor in his large
brown eyes, which were shaded by lashes so long, and black, and
curved that most women who met him envied him their possession.
Children and dogs adopted him as a friend promptly and without
reservation; but strangers of adult age were apt to regard him as a
rather morose and aloof-mannered person, distinctly frigid and self-
possessed, until some chance turn in the talk brought laughter to
eyes and lips. Then a carefully veiled kindliness of heart seemed to
bubble to the surface and irradiate his face. All the severity of firm
mouth and determined chin disappeared as though by magic; and
one understood the force of the simile used by a western
schoolma’am, who contributed verse to the Rocky Mountain News,
when she said that Derry’s smile reminded her of a sudden burst of
sunshine which had converted into a sparkling mirror the somber
gloom of a lake sunk in the depths of some secluded valley. Even in
Colorado, people of the poetic temperament write in that strain.
Now, perhaps, you have some notion of the sort of young man it
was who came back to the dog-goned MacGonigal on that June day
in the half-forgotten ’80’s. Add to the foregoing description certain
intimate labels—that he was a mining engineer, that he had been
educated in the best schools of the Far West, that he was slender,
and well knit, and slightly above the middle height, and that he
moved with the gait of a horseman and an athlete—and the portrait
is fairly complete.
The storekeeper was Power’s physical antithesis. He was short and
fat, and never either walked or rode; but his North of Ireland
ancestors had bequeathed him a shrewd brain and a Scottish
slowness of speech that gave him time to review his thoughts before
they were uttered. No sooner did he hear his visitor’s approaching
footsteps than he began again to polish the pine boards which
barricaded him from the small world of Bison.
Such misplaced industry won a smile from the younger man.
“Gee whizz, Mac, it makes me hot to see you work!” he cried.
“Anyhow, if you’ve been whirling that duster ever since I blew in you
must be tired, so you can quit now, and fix me a bimetallic.”
With a curious alacrity, the stout MacGonigal threw the duster
aside, and reached for a bottle of whisky, an egg, a siphon of soda,
and some powdered sugar. Colorado is full of local color, even to the
naming of its drinks. In a bimetallic the whole egg is used, and
variants of the concoction are a gold fizz and a silver fizz, wherein
the yoke and the white figure respectively.
“Whar you been, Derry?” inquired the storekeeper, whose massive
energy was now concentrated on the proper whisking of the egg.
“Haven’t you heard? Marten sent me to erect the pump on a
placer mine he bought near Sacramento. It’s a mighty good
proposition, too, and I’ve done pretty well to get through in four
months.”
“Guess I was told about the mine; but I plumb forgot. Marten was
here a bit sence, an’ he said nothin’.” Power laughed cheerfully. “He’ll
be surprised to see me, and that’s a fact. He counted on the job
using up the best part of the summer, right into the fall; but I made
those Chicago mechanics open up the throttle, and here I am,
having left everything in full swing.”
“Didn’t you write?”
“Yes, to Denver. I don’t mind telling you, Mac, that I would have
been better pleased if the boss was there now. I came slick through,
meaning to make Denver tomorrow. Where is he—at the mill?”
“He was thar this mornin’.”
Power was frankly puzzled by MacGonigal’s excess of reticence. He
knew the man so well that he wondered what sinister revelation lay
behind this twice-repeated refusal to give a direct reply to his
questions. By this time the appetizing drink was ready, and he
swallowed it with the gusto of one who had found the sun hot and
the trail dusty, though he had ridden only three miles from the
railroad station in the valley, where he was supplied with a lame
horse by the blunder of a negro attendant at the hotel.
It was his way to solve a difficulty by taking the shortest possible
cut; but, being quite in the dark as to the cause of his friend’s
perceptible shirking of some unknown trouble, he decided to adopt
what logicians term a process of exhaustion.
“All well at Dolores?” he asked, looking straight into the
storekeeper’s prominent eyes.
“Bully!” came the unblinking answer.
Ah! The worry, whatsoever it might be, evidently did not concern
John Darien Power in any overwhelming degree.
“Then what have you got on your chest, Mac?” he said, while
voice and manner softened from an unmistakably stiffening.
MacGonigal seemed to regard this personal inquiry anent his well-
being as affording a safe means of escape from a dilemma. “I’m
scairt about you, Derry,” he said at once, and there was no doubting
the sincerity of the words.
“About me?”
“Yep. Guess you’d better hike back to Sacramento.”
“But why?”
“Marten ’ud like it.”
“Man, I’ve written to tell him I was on the way to Denver!”
“Then git a move on, an’ go thar.”
Power smiled, though not with his wonted geniality, for he was
minded to be sarcastic. “Sorry if I should offend the boss by turning
up in Bison,” he drawled; “but if I can’t hold this job down I’ll
monkey around till I find another. If you should happen to see
Marten this afternoon, tell him I’m at the ranch, and will show up in
Main Street tomorrow P.M.”
He was actually turning on his heel when MacGonigal cried:
“Say, Derry, air you heeled?”
Power swung round again, astonishment writ large on his face.
“Why, no,” he said. “I’m not likely to be carrying a gold brick to
Dolores. Who’s going to hold me up?”
“Bar jokin’, I wish you’d vamoose. Dang me, come back tomorrer,
ef you must!”
There! MacGonigal had said it! In a land where swearing is a
science this Scoto-Hibernico-American had earned an enviable
repute for the mildness of his expletives, and his “dang me!” was as
noteworthy in Bison as its European equivalent in the mouth of a
British archbishop. Power was immensely surprised by his bulky
friend’s emphatic earnestness, and cudgeled his brains to suggest a
reasonable explanation. Suddenly it occurred to him a second time
that Bison was singularly empty of inhabitants that day. MacGonigal’s
query with regard to a weapon was also significant, and he
remembered that when he left the district there was pending a grave
dispute between ranchers and squatters as to the inclosing of certain
grazing lands on the way to the East and its markets.
“Are the boys wire-cutting today?” he asked, in the accents of real
concern; for any such expedition would probably bring about a
struggle which might not end till one or both of the opposing parties
ran short of ammunition.
“Nit,” growled the other. “Why argy? You jest take my say-so,
Derry, an’ skate.”
“Is the boss mixed up in this?”
“Yep.”
“Well, he can take care of himself as well as anyone I know. So
long, Mac. See you later.”
“Ah, come off, Derry. You’ve got to have it; but don’t say I didn’t
try to help. The crowd are up at Dolores. Marten’s gittin’ married, an’
that’s all there is to it. Now I guess you’ll feel mad with me for not
tellin’ you sooner.”
Power’s face blanched under its healthy tan of sun and air; but his
voice was markedly clear and controlled when he spoke, which,
however, he did not do until some seconds after MacGonigal had
made what was, for him, quite an oration.
“Why should Marten go to Dolores to get married?” he said at last.
The storekeeper humped his heavy shoulders, and conjured the
cigar across his mouth again. He did not flinch under the sudden fire
which blazed in Power’s eyes; nevertheless, he remained silent.
“Mac,” went on the younger man, still uttering each word
deliberately, “do you mean that Marten is marrying Nancy Willard?”
“Yep.”
“And you’ve kept me here all this time! God in Heaven, Man, find
me a horse!”
“It’s too late, Derry. They was wed three hours sence.”
“Too late for what? Get me a horse!”
“There’s not a nag left in Bison. An’ it’ll do you no sort of good ter
shoot Marten.”
“Mac, you’re no fool. He sent me to Sacramento to have me out of
the way, and you’ve seen through it right along.”
“Maybe. But old man Willard was dead broke. This dry spell put
him slick under the harrow. Nancy married Marten ter save her
father.”
“That’s a lie! They made her believe it, perhaps; but Willard could
have won through as others have done. That scheming devil Marten
got me side-tracked on purpose. He planned it, just as David put
Uriah in the forefront of the battle. But, by God, he’s not a king, any
more than I’m a Hittite! Nancy Willard is not for him, nor ever will
be. Give me—but I know you won’t, and it doesn’t matter, anyway,
because I’d rather tear him with my hands.”
An overpowering sense of wrong and outrage had Power in its grip
now, and his naturally sallow skin had assumed an ivory whiteness
that was dreadful to see. So rigid was his self-control that he gave
no other sign of the passion that was convulsing him. Turning
toward the door, he thrust his right hand to the side of the leather
belt he wore; but withdrew it instantly, for he was a law-abiding
citizen, and had obeyed in letter and spirit the recently enacted
ordinance against the carrying of weapons. He would have gone
without another word had not MacGonigal slipped from behind the
counter with the deft and catlike ease of movement which some
corpulent folk of both sexes seem to possess. Running lightly and
stealthily on his toes, he caught Power’s arm before the latter was
clear of the veranda which shaded the front of the store.
“Whar ’r you goin’, Derry?” he asked, with a note of keen
solicitude in his gruff voice that came oddly in a man accustomed to
the social amenities of a mining camp.
“Leave me alone, Mac. I must be alone!” Then Power bent a
flaming glance on him. “You’ve told me the truth?” he added in a
hoarse whisper.
“Sure thing. You must ha passed the minister between here an’
the depot.”
“He had been there—to marry them?”
“Yep.”
“And everyone is up at the ranch, drinking the health of Marten
and his bride?”
“Guess that’s so.”
Power tried to shake off the detaining hand. “It’s a pity that I
should be an uninvited guest, but it can’t be helped,” he said
savagely. “You see, I was carrying out the millionaire’s orders—
earning him more millions—and I ought to have taken longer over
the job. And, Nancy too! What lie did they tell her about me? I
hadn’t asked her to be my wife, because it wouldn’t have been fair;
yet—but she knew! She knew! Let me go, Mac!”
MacGonigal clutched him more tightly. “Ah, say, Derry,” he cried
thickly, “hev’ you forgot you’ve left me yer mother’s address in San
Francisco? In case of accidents, you said. Well, am I ter write an’ tell
her you killed a man on his weddin’ day, and was hanged for it?”
“For the Lord’s sake, don’t hold me, Mac!”
The storekeeper, with a wisdom born of much experience, took his
hand off Power’s arm at once, but contrived to edge forward until he
was almost facing his distraught friend.
“Now, look-a here!” he said slowly. “This air a mighty bad
business; but you cahn’t mend it, an’ ef you go cavortin’ round in a
red-eyed temper you’ll sure make it wuss. You’ve lost the gal—never
mind how—an’ gittin’ a strangle hold on Marten won’t bring her
back. Yer mother’s a heap more to you ner that gal—now.”
One wonders what hidden treasury of insight into the deeps of
human nature MacGonigal was drawing on by thus bringing before
the mind’s eye of an unhappy son the mother he loved. But there
was no gainsaying the soundness and efficiency of his judgment.
Only half comprehending his friendly counselor’s purpose, Power
quivered like a high-spirited horse under the prick of a spur. He put
his hands to his face, as if the gesture would close out forever the
horrific vision which the memory of that gray-haired woman in San
Francisco was beginning to dispel. For the first time in his young life
he had felt the lust of slaying, and the instinct of the jungle thrilled
through every nerve, till his nails clenched and his teeth bit in a
spasm of sheer delirium.
MacGonigal, despite his present load of flesh, must have passed
through the fiery furnace himself in other days; for he recognized
the varying phases of the obsession against which Power was
fighting.
Hence, he knew when to remain silent, and, again, he knew when
to exorcise the demon, once and for all, by the spoken word. It was
so still there on that sun-scorched plateau that the mellow whistle of
an engine came full-throated from the distant railroad. The lame
horse, bothered by the tight bandage which Power had contrived out
of a girth, pawed uneasily in his stall. From the reduction works, half
a mile away, came the grinding clatter of a mill chewing ore in its
steel jaws. These familiar sounds served only to emphasize the
brooding solitude of the place. Some imp of mischief seemed to
whisper that every man who could be spared from his work, and
every woman and child able to walk, was away making merry at the
wedding of Hugh Marten and Nancy Willard.
The storekeeper must have heard that malicious prompting, and
he combated it most valiantly.
“Guess you’d better come inside, Derry,” he said, with quiet
sympathy. “You’re feelin’ mighty bad, an’ I allow you hain’t touched
a squar’ meal sence the Lord knows when.”
He said the right thing by intuition. The mere fantasy of the
implied belief that a quantity of cold meat and pickles, washed down
by a pint of Milwaukee lager, would serve as an emollient for raw
emotion, restored Power to his right mind. He placed a hand on
MacGonigal’s shoulder, and the brown eyes which met his friend’s no
longer glowered with frenzy.
“I’m all right now,” he said, in a dull, even voice; for this youngster
of twenty-five owned an extra share of that faculty of self-restraint
which is the birthright of every man and woman born and bred on
the back-bone of North America. “I took it pretty hard at first, Mac;
but I’m not one to cry over spilt milk. You know that, eh? No, I can’t
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