ked.

"By Jove, I do!" he cried, sitting suddenly upright as though stirred
with genuine feeling. "I love it without its legends. It does not seem
to me to have any past. It is all future. It makes me feel all future,
too."

"Do you know what's happened to you?" Dick laughed exultantly. "Gitche
Manito the Mighty has got you--the spirit of the West--which, being
interpreted, is Ozone."

"Something has got me, I admit," Norris cried. "What is it? What is it
that makes the sky so dazzling? What is it that makes the leaves fairly
radiate light? What is it that, every time you take a breath, makes the
air freshen you down to your toes? I feel younger than I ever did before
in all my life."

The other two were looking at him.

"Well, our height above the sea-level--" Dick began.

"Oh, rot!" Ellery exclaimed. "It's something more than air--it's
atmosphere. You feel here that it's glorious to work."

"You make me proud of you, old boy."

"It's funny how universally you fellows call me 'old boy'. I suppose I
was older than the rest of you. I had to take the responsibility for my
own life too soon and it took out of me that assurance that most of you
had--that complacent confidence that things would somehow manage
themselves. But I'm getting even now. I'm appreciating being young,
which most men don't."

"Bully for you!" Dick cried. "If you couldn't be born a Westerner, you
are born again one. I am moved to tell you something that gave me a
small glow yesterday. I met Lewis--the editor of the _Star_, you know,
Madeline--and he insisted on stopping me and congratulating me on having
brought Mr. Norris to St. Etienne; said he was irritated at first by
having a man forced on him by influence, when there was really no
particular place for him, but, he went on, 'Mr. Norris is rapidly making
his own place. We think him a real acquisition.'"

"Oh, pooh!" Norris lapsed sulkily into his usual quiet manner. "Of
course I can write better than I can talk. My thoughts are just slow
enough, I guess, to keep up with a pen."

Dick laughed softly as though he were pleased at things he did not tell.
Madeline, for the first time, gave her real attention to Mr. Norris,
whom she had not hitherto thought worth dwelling on--at least when Dick
was about. Never before had this young man talked about himself.

A silence fell.

"Was that a wood-thrush?" Norris asked, manifestly grasping at a change
of subject.

"I don't know, and I don't