tion. He stood erect now,
with the color bright in his cheeks, one hand thrust into his pocket,
the other clenching his pipe.

"I tell you," he declared, "I've missed too much! Life over here is a
big thing!--it's wonderful, marvelous, grand, glorious! And who am I to
spend winters on the dead old Nile when history is being made right here
on White River! I tell you I want to watch the Great Experiment, and if
I were not a poor, worthless, ignorant ass I'd be a part of it."

Dan did not question the young fellow's sincerity. His glowing eyes and
the half-choked voice in which he concluded gave an authentic stamp to
his lament and pronouncement. A look of dejection crossed his face. He
had, by his own confession, asked Dan into the house merely to have some
one to talk to; he was dissatisfied, unhappy, lonely; and his slender
figure and flushed cheeks supported his own testimony that his health
had been a matter of concern. The Nile and the Alps against which he had
revolted might not be so unnecessary as he believed.

The situation was so novel that Harwood's mind did not respond with the
promptness of his heart. He had known the sons of rich men at college,
and some of them had been his friends. It was quite the natural and
accepted order of things that some children should be born to sheltered,
pampered lives, while others were obliged to hew their own way to
success. He had observed in college that the sons of the rich had a
pretty good time of it; but he had gone his own way unenviously. It was
not easy to classify young Thatcher. He was clearly an exotic, a curious
pale flower with healthy roots and a yearning for clean, free air. Dan
was suddenly conscious that the young fellow's eyes were bent upon him
with a wistfulness, a kind of pleading sweetness, that the reporter had
no inclination to resist. He delayed speaking, anxious to say the right
word, to meet the plea in the right spirit.

"I think I understand; I believe I should feel just as you do if I were
in your shoes. It's mighty interesting, this whole big scheme we're a
part of. Over there on the other side it's all different, the life, the
aims, and the point of view. And here we've got just what you call
it--the most wonderful experiment the world ever saw. Great Scott!" he
exclaimed, kindling from the spark struck by Thatcher's closing words,
"it's prodigious, overwhelming! There mustn't be any question of
losing!"

"That's right!" broke in Thatche