he answered with a caressing touch upon the word. "I came here
to make it; I sha'n't go away without it. I don't know just how long it
will take me, nor how hard it will be, but I'm going to collect interest
on my hopes from this country before I turn my back."

"You seem to believe in it," said he.

"Perhaps I believe more in myself," she answered thoughtfully. "Have you
determined what you are going to do?"

He laughed--a short, harsh expression of ironical bitterness.

"I've gone through the mill today of heat and cold," said he. "First, I
was going to sell my relinquishment for ten thousand dollars as soon as
the law would allow, but by noon I had come down to five hundred. After
that I took up the notion of sheep stronger than Milo, from Iowa, ever
thought of it. It took just one more extra to put that fire out, and now
the ashes of it aren't even warm. Just what my next phantasy will be I
can't say."

"But you're going to stay here, aren't you?"

"I've thought of that, too. I've thought of making another try at it in
a professional way. But this is a big, empty country. Few people live in
it and fewer die. I don't know."

"Well, you're a doctor, not an undertaker, anyhow," she reminded him.

"Yes; I missed my calling," he laughed, with the bitterness of defeat.

"No," she corrected; "I didn't mean that. But perhaps at something else
you might get on faster here--business of some kind, I mean."

"If I had the chance!" he exclaimed wearily, flinging his hat to the
ground as he sat beside her on a boulder at the river's edge. "I've
never had a square and open chance at anything yet."

"I don't know, of course," said she. "But the trouble with most of us,
it seems to me, is that we haven't the quickness or the courage to take
hold of the chance when it comes. All of us let so many good ones get
away."

Dusk had deepened. The star-glow was upon the river, placid there in its
serene approach to the rough passage beyond. He sat there, the wind
lifting the hair upon his forehead, pondering what she had said.

Was it possible that a man could walk blindly by his chances for
thirty-five years, only to be grasping, empty-palmed, after them when
they had whisked away? For what else did his complainings signify? He
had lacked the courage or the quickness, or some essential, as she had
said, to lay hold of them before they fled away beyond his reach
forever.

There was a chance beside him going to waste tonight-