oofs of Market Street into the prairie. No longer even can one see
from Harvey the painted sky at night that marks South Harvey and the
industrial towns of the Wahoo Valley. Harvey is shut in; we all are
sometimes by our comforts. The dreams of the pioneers that haloed the
heads of those who came to Harvey in those first days--those dreams are
gone. Here and there one is trapped in brick or wood or stone or iron;
and another glows in a child or walks the weary ways of man as a custom
or an institution or as a law that brought only a part of the blessings
which it promised.

And the equality of opportunity for which these pioneers crossed the
Mississippi and came into the prairie uplands of the West--where is that
evanescent spirit? Certainly it touched Daniel Sands's shoulder and he
followed it; it beckoned Dr. Nesbit and he followed it a part of the
journey. Surely Kyle Perry saw it for years, and Captain Morton was
destined to find it, gorgeous and iridescent. Amos Adams might have had
it for the asking, but he sought it only for others. It never came to
Dooley and Hogan, and Williams and Bowman and those who went into the
Valley. Did it die, one may ask; or did it vanish like a prairie stream
under the sand to flow on subterranean and appear again strong, purified
and refreshed, a powerful current to carry mankind forward? The world
that was in the flux of dreams that day when Harvey began, had hardened
to reality thirty years after. Men were going their appointed ways
working out in circumstances the equation of their life's philosophy.

And now while the story waits, we may well look at three pictures. They
do not speed the narrative; they hardly point morals to adorn this tale.
But they may show us how living a creed consistently colors one's life.
For after all the realities of life are from within. Events,
environment, fortune good or bad do not color life, or give it richness
and form and value. But in living a creed one makes his picture. So let
us look at Thomas Van Dorn, who boasted that he could beat God at his
own game, and did. For all that he wanted came to him, wealth and fame
and power, and the women he desired.

Judge and Mrs. Van Dorn and her dog are riding by in their smart rubber
tired trap, behind a highly checked horse and with the dog between them.
They are not talking. The man is looking at his gloved hands, at the
horse, at the street,--where occasionally he bows and smiles and never
by any