ears to grooming yourself for another outcast of Poker Flat. [MARTHA
laughs.]

CURTIS--[Grinning.] It was you who were hypnotized by Harte--so much so
that his West of the past is still your blinded New England-movie idea
of the West at present. But go on. What next?

BIGELOW--Next? You get a job as engineer in that Goldfield mine--but
you are soon disillusioned by a laborious life where six-shooters are
as rare as nuggets. You try prospecting. You find nothing but different
varieties of pebbles. But it is necessary to your nature to project
romance into these stones, so you go in strong for geology. As a
geologist, you become a slave to the Romance of the Rocks. It is but a
step from that to anthropology--the last romance of all. There you find
yourself--because there is no further to go. You win fame as the most
proficient of young skull-hunters--and wander over the face of the
globe, digging up bones like an old dog.

CURTIS--[With a laugh.] The man is mad, Martha.

BIGELOW--Mad! What an accusation to come from one who is even now
considering setting forth on a five-year excavating contest in search
of the remains of our gibbering ancestor, the First Man!

CURTIS--[With sudden seriousness.] I'm not considering it any longer.
I've decided to go.

MARTHA--[Starting--the hurt showing in her voice.] When did you decide?

CURTIS--I only really came to a decision this morning. [With a
seriousness that forces BIGELOW'S interested attention.] It's a case of
got to go. It's a tremendous opportunity that it would be a crime for
me to neglect.

BIGELOW--And a big honor, too, isn't it, to be picked as a member of
such a large affair?

CURTIS--[With a smile.] I guess it's just that they want all the men
with considerable practical experience they can get. There are bound to
be hardships and they know I'm hardened to them. [Turning to his wife
with an affectionate smile.] We haven't roughed it in the queer corners
for the last ten years without knowing how it's done, have we, Martha?

MARTHA--[Dully.] No, Curt.

CURTIS--[With an earnest enthusiasm.] And this expedition IS what you
call a large affair, Big. It's the largest thing of its kind ever
undertaken. The possibilities, from the standpoint of anthropology, are
limitless.

BIGELOW--[With a grin.] Aha! Now we come to the Missing Link!

CURTIS--[Frowning.] Darn your Barnum and Bailey circus lingo, Big. This
isn't a thing to mock at. I should think the origin of