your success," he added to his companion across the table, when
the waiter had returned from his mission.

II

A year passed around, as years have a way of doing, and found
Calmar Bye, the city man, metamorphosed indeed. Bronzed, bearded,
corduroy-clothed, cigarette-smoking,--for cigars fifty miles from a
railroad are a curiosity,--as the seasons are dissimilar, so was he
unlike his former inconsequent self. In his every action now was a
directness and a purpose of which he had not even a conception in
his former existence.

Very, very thin upon us all is the veneer of civilization; very, very
swift is the reversion to the primitive when opportunity presents.
Only twelve short months and this man, end product of civilization,
doer of nothing practical, dreamer of dreams and recorder of fancies,
had become a positive force, a contributor to the world's food supply,
a producer of meat. What a satire, in a period of time of which the
shifting seasons could be counted upon one hand, to have vibrated
from manuscript to beef, and for the change to be seemingly
unalterable!

To be sure there had been a struggle; a period of travail while
readjustment was being established; a desperate sense of homesickness
at first view of the undulating, grass-covered, horizon-bounded
prairies; an insatiable need of the shops, the theatres, the
telephones, the _cafes_, the newspapers, all of which previously had
constituted everything that made life worth living. But these emotions
had passed away. What evolvement of civilization could equal the
beauty of a dew-scented, sun-sparkling prairie morning, or the
grandeur of a soundless, star-dotted prairie night, wherein the very
limitlessness of things, their immensity, was a never ending source of
wonder? Verily, all changes and conditions of life have their
compensations.

Calmar Bye, the one time listless, had learned many things in this
unheard-of world.

First of all, most insistent of all, he was impressed with the
overwhelming predominance of the physical over the mental. Later, in
practical knowledge, he grew inured to the "feel" of a native bucking
broncho and the sound of mocking, human laughter after a stunning
fall; in direct evolution, the method of throwing a steer and the odor
of burnt hair and hide which followed the puff of smoke where the
branding iron touched ceased to be cruel.

Last of all, highest evolvement of all, came the absorption of
revolver-lore under t