ed the
high numbers which he had set as his possible lowest, he felt like
sneaking away, whipped, to hide his discouragement where there was no
one to see. His confounded luck wouldn't even grant him the opportunity
of burying himself out there in that gray sea of blowing dust!

There was no use in trying to disguise the fact any longer; he was a
fizzle. Some men were designed from the beginning for failures, and he
was one of the plainest patterns that ever was made. There was a place
for Axel Peterson, the alien, but there was no place for him.

In spite of his age and experience, he did not understand that the world
values men according to the resistance they interpose against it;
according to the stamping down of feet and the presenting of shoulders
and the squaring arms to take its blows. Cowards make a front before it
and get on with amazing success; droves of poltroons bluster and storm,
with empty shells of hearts inside their ribs, and kick up a fine dust
in the arena, under the cloud of which they snatch down many of the
laurels which have been hung up for worthier men. Success lies
principally in understanding that the whole game is a bluff on the
world's part, and that the biggest bluffer in the ring takes down the
purse.

But the timid hearts of the earth never learn this; the sentimentalists
and the poets do not understand it. You can't go along sweeping a clear
path for your feet with a bunch of flowers. What you need is a good,
sound club. When a hairy shin impedes, whack it, or make a feint and a
bluff. You'll be surprised how easily the terrifying hulks of adversity
are charmed out of the highway ahead of you by a little impertinence, a
little ginger, and a little gall.

Many a man remains a coward all his life because somebody cowed him when
he was a boy. Dr. Slavens had put his hands down, and had stood with his
shoulders hunched, taking the world's thumps without striking back, for
so many years in his melancholy life that his natural resistance had
shrunk. On that day he was not as nature had intended him, but as
circumstances had made him.

It had become the friendly fashion in camp for the doctor and Agnes to
take a walk after supper. June's mother had frowned on the boldness of
it, whispering to June's aunt. But the miller's wife, more liberal and
romantic, wouldn't hear of whisperings. She said their conduct was as
irreproachable in that country as eating peas with a spoon.

"I wish I wa