And
success had come to him as self-vindication.

But it had been to him more, vastly more, than a mere duty, although
from the outset he had looked upon it in that light. It had been a
test. Had the outcome been reversed, had he failed, had Brayley
worsted him, there was every likelihood that Conniston would have left
the range. But now, hand in hand with dawning regeneration, there came
confidence. There were many things which his destiny had set ahead of
him, and he was ready to face them with the same dogged determination
with which he had faced the big foreman.

Then, too, this morning he had received more than mere self-approval.
Brayley had indorsed his work in his consultation with Mr. Crawford.
And Mr. Crawford had seen fit to increase his daily wage. He had not
been worth a dollar a day a month ago, and he knew it. Now he was to
be paid a dollar and a half a day, and because he was worth that to
the Half Moon. So far, in the circumscribed area of his daily duties,
he "had made good." He felt that the first heat of the great race was
run, that in spite of his handicap he had held his own. The race
itself was almost a tangible thing ahead of him. Greek Conniston was
ready for it. And he dared think, with a sharp-drawn breath and a
leaping of blood throughout his whole being, of the golden prize at
the end of it--for the man who could win that prize.

He worked all that day with Rawhide Jones, his left hand upon his
reins, his right thrust into his open vest as a rude sort of sling. He
met Rawhide's surprise, answered his quick question by saying, simply,
without explanation, "I got hurt." Rawhide had grunted and dropped the
subject.

All day long one matter surged uppermost in Conniston's mind to the
exclusion of anything else: he was to be transferred from the Half
Moon to Rattlesnake Valley. He did not know whether to be glad at the
change or sorry. He was growing to know the men with whom he worked,
growing to like them, to find pleasure in their rude companionship.
Now, just as he was making friends of them he was to be shifted among
strangers. To-day he had found heretofore unsounded depths in the
nature of Brayley; he wanted to know the man better, to show him that
he had not been blind to rough, frank generosity, nor unappreciative
of it. Through these latter days, during which the scales had been
dropping from his eyes in spite of prejudice, he had been forced into
a grudging admiration of the man'