was built upon revolt;" and he pulled the covers
over his head.

"I know, I know. We jaw an awful lot about freedom and about what's
American. There's plenty o' free speech in America and plenty o'
machinery, but there's a great deal o' human nature, too, I guess." The
Boy looked out of the corner of his eye at the blanketed back of his
big friend. "And maybe there'll always be some people who--who think
there's something in the New Testament notion o' sacrifice and
service."

The Colonel rolled like an angry leviathan, and came to the surface to
blow. But the Boy dashed on, with a fearful joy in his own temerity.
"The difference between us, Colonel, is that I'm an unbeliever, and I
know it, and you're a cantankerous old heathen, and you _don't_ know
it." The Colonel sat suddenly bolt upright. "Needn't look at me like
that. You're as bad as anybody--rather worse. Why are you _here?_
Dazzled and lured by the great gold craze. An' you're not even poor.
You want _more_ gold. You've got a home to stay in; but you weren't
satisfied, not even in the fat lands down below."

"Well," said the Colonel solemnly, blinking at the fire, "I hope I'm a
Christian, but as to bein' satisfied--"

"Church of England can't manage it, hey?"

"Church of England's got nothing to do with it. It's a question o'
character. Satisfied! We're little enough, God knows, but we're too big
for that."

The Boy stood up, back to the fire, eyes on the hilltops whitening in
the starlight.

"Perhaps--not--all of us."

"Yes, sah, all of us." The Colonel lifted his head with a fierce look
of most un-Christian pride. Behind him the hills, leaving the
struggling little wood far down the slope, went up and up into dimness,
reaching to the near-by stars, and looking down to the far-off camp
fire by the great ice-river's edge.

"Yes, sah," the Colonel thundered again, "all that have got good
fightin' blood in 'em, like you and me. 'Tisn't as if we came of any
worn-out, frightened, servile old stock. You and I belong to the
free-livin', hard-ridin', straight-shootin' Southerners. The people
before us fought bears, and fought Indians, and beat the British, and
when there wasn't anything else left to beat, turned round and began to
beat one another. It was the one battle we found didn't pay. We
finished that job up in '65, and since then we've been lookin' round
for something else to beat. We've got down now to beatin' records, and
foreign markets, and bre