If he had lived long like that, no wonder his
eyes had gone bad. Yet last night Monte himself had lived like that,
pacing his room hour after hour. Only it was not work that had given a
cutting edge to each minute--not life, whatever Noyes meant by that.
His thoughts had all been of a woman. Was that life? Was it what
Noyes had meant when he said "everything"?

"This bucking the line all the time raises the devil with you," he said.

"How?" demanded Noyes.

The answer Monte could have returned was obvious. The fact that amazed
him was that Noyes could have asked the question with the sun and the
blue sky shut away from him. It only proved again what Monte had
always maintained--that excesses of any kind, whether of rum or
ambition or--or love--drove men stark mad. Blind as a bat from
overwork, Noyes still asked the question.

"Look here," said Monte, with a frown. "Before the big events the
coach used to take us one side and make us believe that the one thing
in life we wanted was that game. He used to make us as hungry for it
as a starved dog for a bone. He used to make us ache for it. So we
used to wade in and tear ourselves all to pieces to get it."

"Well?"

"If we won it was n't so much; if we lost--it left us aching worse than
before."

"Yes."

"There was the crowd that sat and watched us. They did n't care the
way we cared. We went back to the locker building in strings; they
went off to a comfortable dinner."

"And the moral?" demanded Noyes.

"Is not to care too darned much, is n't it?" growled Monte.

"If you want a comfortable dinner," nodded Noyes.

"Or a comfortable night's sleep. Or if you want to wake up in the
morning with the world looking right."

Again Monte saw the impulsive movement of the man's hand to his eyes.

He said quickly: "I did n't mean to refer to that."

"I forget it for a while. Then--suddenly--I remember it."

"You wanted something too hard," said Monte gently.

"I wanted something with all there was in me. I still want it."

"You're not sorry, then?"

"If I were sorry for that, I'd be sorry I was alive."

"But the cost!"

"Of what value is a thing that doesn't cost?" returned Noyes. "All the
big things cost big. Half the joy in them is pitting yourself against
that and paying the price. The ache you speak of--that's credited to
the joy in the end. Those men in the grand-stand don't know that. If
you fight hard, you can't lose, no matter