f the five senses applied to every experience
of life. And he knew that nothing was coarse or common that passed
through Dave's hands. Coal had ceased to be a smutty mineral, and had
taken on talismanic qualities unguessed by the mere animal workman; and
sugar, and coffee, and beans, and rice, and spices, each would open its
own wonderful world before this young and fertile mind. As an heritage
from his boyhood on the ranges Dave had astonishingly alert senses; his
sight, his hearing, his sense of smell and of touch were vastly more
acute than those of the average university graduate. . . And if that
were true might it not fairly be said that Dave was already the better
educated of the two, even if he, as yet, knew nothing of the classics?

As Dave parted from the Metford gang he felt that he knew what Mr.
Duncan had meant by the dead-line. These were men who would always
shovel coal, because they aspired to nothing better. There was no atom
of snobbery in Dave's nature; he knew perfectly well that shovelling
coal was quite as honourable and respectable a means of livelihood as
managing a bank, but the man who was content to shovel coal was on the
dead-line. . . And, by the same logic, the man who was content to
manage a bank was on the dead-line. That was a new and somewhat
startling aspect of life. He must discuss it with Mr. Duncan.

Dave's energy and enthusiasm in the warehouse soon brought him
promotion from truck hand to shipping clerk, with an advance in wages
to sixty-five dollars a month. He was prepared to remain in this
position for some time, as he knew that promotion depends on many
things besides ability. Mr. Duncan had warned him against the delusion
that man is entirely master of his destiny. "Life, my boy," he had
said, "is fifty per cent. environment and forty per cent. heredity.
The other ten per cent. is yours. But that ten per cent. is like the
steering gear in an automobile; it's only a small part of the
mechanism, but it directs the course of the whole machine. Get a good
grip on the part of your life you can control, and don't worry over the
rest."

To economize both time and money Dave took his lunch with him and ate
it in the warehouse. He had also become possessed of a pocket
encyclopaedia and it was his habit to employ the minutes saved by
eating lunch in the warehouse in reading from his encyclopaedia. It
chanced one day that as he was reading in the noon hour Mr. Trapper,