His chivalry was born and bred of the mountains and the open and had nothing in common with the insincere brand which develops in the softer and more luxurious laps of civilization.

Years of aloneness had put their mark upon him.

Men of the north, reading the lines, understood what they meant.

But only now and then could a woman possibly understand.

Yet if in any given moment a supreme physical crisis had come, women would have turned instinctively in their helplessness to such a man as Alan Holt.
He possessed a vein of humor which few had been privileged to discover.
The mountains had taught him to laugh in silence.