heard
the cousin say: "You damned yellow cur--to bear the name of Travis."

CHAPTER III

WORK IN A NEW LIGHT

It was an hour before Clay Westmore rode back to Millwood. He had
been too busy plowing that day to get, sooner, a specimen of the rock
he had seen out-cropping on Sand Mountain. At night, after supper, he
had ridden over for it.

And now by moonlight he had found it!

He flushed with the strength of it all as he put it in his
satchel--the strength of knowing that not even poverty, nor work, nor
night could keep him from accomplishing his purpose.

Then he rode back, stopping at Millwood. For he thought, too, that he
might see Helen, and while he had resolved not to force himself on
her after what she had said when he last saw her, still he wished
very much to see her now and then.

For somehow, it never got out of his deductive head that some day she
would learn to love him. Had he known the temptation, the despair
that was hers, he would not have been so quietly deliberate. But she
had never told him. In fact, he had loved her from a distance all his
life in his quiet way, though now, by her decree, they were scarcely
more than the best of friends. Some day, after he had earned enough,
he would tell her just how much he loved her. At present he could
not, for was he not too poor, and were not his mother and sister
dependent upon him?

He knew that Harry Travis loved her in a way--a love he was certain
would not last, and in the fullness and depths of his sincere nature,
he felt as sure of ultimately winning her, by sheer force of
strength, of consistency and devotion, as he was that every great
thing in life had been done by the same force and would be to the end
of time.

As sure as that, by this same force, he, himself, would one day
discover the vein of coal which lay somewhere in the beautiful valley
of the Tennessee.

And so he waited his time with the easy assurance of the philosopher
which he was, and with that firm faith which minds of his strength
always have in themselves and their ultimate success.

It surprised him, it is true--hurt him--when he found to what extent
Harry Travis had succeeded in winning the love of Helen. He was hurt
because he expected--hoped--she would see further into things than
she had. And counting all the poverty and hardships of his life, the
Sunday afternoon when he had left her in the arbor, after she had
told him she was engaged to Harry Travis, h