." All night long he sat and read. All the
civilizations of earth passed before him in perspective. It gave him a
new interest in life. He wanted to go out and take this London by the
throat. It was a mockery of what civilization should be. It was an insult
to dead generations of men. Man had fought and suffered and died
for--this! Humanity had labored for tens of centuries to give birth
to--this!

But his healthy mind recoiled from morbid speculation. He took a trip into
Devonshire, and found there a recrudescence of the old calm joyousness
that he believed had somehow left him. He roved the Devon hills in wind
and rain, drew into his lungs the fragrant breath of the moorland, and
felt a better man. He sang as he walked--a great deep song that went
echoing along the valleys. Space--space! There was the magic potion. What
were Money, Success, Power, compared to the free delights of Nature?

On his return to London he seriously reflected upon the advisability of
going back to Medicine Bow. Man is a gregarious animal, and Jim was
feeling the need of friends. What envy was his when he perceived little
groups of friends, gathered together around some table, laughing and
making merry! He had found the big London clubs astonishingly exclusive. A
man had to be proposed and seconded, and what not, by existing members,
who had to vouch for his moral or social standing. Jim felt an outsider;
an alien among strange people, whose ways were not his ways. It might have
been Colorado for him but for a totally unexpected occurrence.

He was returning from a trip to the Crystal Palace, and was waiting on the
railway platform for his train, when a drunken man started a commotion a
few paces from him. Exhibiting signs of violence, two porters came forward
to remove him. That was, apparently, exactly what he wanted. He slipped
off his coat and danced round in ungainly fashion. The porters advanced.
He lunged out and caught the foremost man a heavy blow under the chin. The
man reeled back and collided violently with an immaculately dressed man
who was standing on the edge of the platform. The latter staggered, lost
his balance, and fell on to the line. A frenzied voice screamed:

"Oh, my God, the train!"

The locomotive arrived with a roar. The man on the line tried to rise,
but the sight of the approaching doom paralyzed him. Women shrieked and
men stood rooted to the spot. No one saw the big form of Jim descend like
a thunderbolt on t