ork
as I can in this great undeveloped country.

"That also is something to be remembered. The era of development is just
beginning. These men are nation builders, though they don't know it, or
intend it, or care anything about that aspect of their activities. Their
motives are the sordid impulses of greed and selfish ambition alone.

"At least that is true of all of them except Captain Hallam. He is a man
apart. His attitude is a peculiar one. He does not care for wealth in
itself and yet he scrambles for it as greedily and as hungrily as the
rest of them. Sometimes I think he regards the whole thing as a game
which he enjoys playing with superior skill, just as one might with
whist or chess. He likes to win, not for the sake of the winnings, but
for the sake of the winning.

"I must go to bed now. To-morrow I'll begin thinking out plans for
getting money. One thing is sure. No man can get much money by working
for any other man. The man who gets rich is he who hires other men to
work for him for less than their work is worth. But it is only by
working for another man that one can get the first little capital--the
first rude but handy tool with which to achieve success. I'll go on
working as a hired man till I get a little hoard together. After
that--well, we shall see."

Duncan was greatly admired but little understood by his fellows in the
service of the Hallam firm, or by the similar people who thronged the
town. His fellows, in and out of the office, were commonplace young men,
all looking to the main chance alone and pursuing it with only such
honesty of conduct as business prudence required. They felt no further
interest in their work than such as was necessary to enable them to
retain their places and their salaries.

Therefore they did not understand Guilford Duncan. Neither could they.
They regarded with amazement and almost with incredulity his
manifestations of sensitive honor and of unselfish loyalty to duty. They
thought of him as a sort of freak, or what we should nowadays call a
crank.

Of course they could not fail to recognize his ability, but they thought
him a good deal of a fool, nevertheless, for not taking selfish
advantage of the opportunities that so frequently came to him. They
could not understand why he should go out of his way, as he very often
did, to render services to the firm which were in no way required or
expected of him. Especially they could not understand why, when he had
r