vernment man knew the evidence was plain and complete in these
cases: yet they were pigeon-holed, let lapse for the Statute of
Limitations to bar action. Why?

Wayland sat down on the slab seat, and the personal reasons came
trooping against his resolutions like the scouts of an oncoming host.

To begin with, he could make more money outside the Service. The
Government men were paid less than foreign ditch-diggers; but then,
which of the men remained in the Service for money? He ran his mind
over half a dozen fellows in the Agricultural Department who had
increased the nation's wealth by hundreds of millions a year. They
were working at salaries less than a Wall Street Junior clerk or office
girl. The question of salary didn't come in as an argument. That
could be dismissed. But there was the bitter fact, he was
accomplishing absolutely nothing by continuing the struggle, nothing
more than a woman yoked to a Silenus hoping to reform him when he daily
grew worse under her eyes. The Government had blocked him. The party
had blocked him. What was the pith of it all, anyway? _Should those
who had the power be given the legal right to take what they cared to
seize_? It was the same old question that had split every country up
into revolution. And closest of all, keenest of all arguments, the new
influence that had come into his life, possessing it, obsessing it. He
might put her out of his thoughts as a possibility. That would not
dull the edge of his own hunger. By staying on he barred all
possibility of ultimate happiness, perhaps her happiness: yet, if he
abandoned the fight for right, he would be unworthy of her. Sooner or
later she would know, and, though she might remain mute, was she the
one to make semblance of what she did not feel? If the light died from
her eye, it would die from his life. He was not a Silenus to guzzle
hog-like over husks when the life had gone. Besides--Wayland laughed
aloud--the idea of her nature permitting a Silenus near enough to
breathe the same atmosphere that she breathed was inconceivable. There
was one chance--one chance only--Get the issue before the People,
squarely, fairly, openly before the People; awaken the People; mass the
law of the snow flake to the mighty rush of the avalanche; let the
People know, force the People to pronounce the verdict. Wayland
thought of Bat inside the cabin--, and laughed bitterly. He rose and
began pacing the edge of the Ridge.