wn out of himself entirely, his
eyes fixed on the far light of a nobler life. He liked to imagine a man
so inspired out of the lonely watches, the stormy rides, the battle
against blizzard and night.

This train of thought had carried him away that gentle spring day as he
rode to Misery. He resented the thought that he might have to spend his
youth as a hired servant in this rough occupation, unremunerative below
the hope of ever gaining enough to make a start in business for himself.
There was no romance in it, for all that had been written, no beautiful
daughter of the ranch owner to be married, and a fortune gained with
her.

Daughters there must be, indeed, among the many stockholders in that big
business, but they were not available in the Bad Lands. The
superintendent of the ranch had three or four, born to that estate, full
of loud laughter, ordinary as baled hay. A man would be a loser in
marrying such as they, even with a fortune ready made.

What better could that rough country offer? People are no gentler than
their pursuits, no finer than the requirements of their lives. Daughters
of the Bad Lands, such as he had seen of them in the wives to whom he
once had tried to sell the All-in-One, and the superintendent's girls
were not intended for any other life. As for him, if he had to live it
out there, with the shadow of a dead man at his heels, he would live it
alone. So he thought, going on his way to Misery, where there was to be
racing that afternoon, and a grand effort to keep up with the Chicago
flier.

Lambert never had taken part in that longstanding competition. It
appeared to him a senseless expenditure of horseflesh, a childish
pursuit of the wind. Yet, foolish as it was, he liked to watch them.
There was a thrill in the sweeping start of twenty or thirty horsemen
that warmed a man, making him feel as if he must whoop and wave his hat.
There was a belief alive among them that some day a man would come who
would run the train neck and neck to the depot platform.

Not much distinction in it, even so, said he. But it set him musing and
considering as he rode, his face quickening out of its somber cloud. A
little while after his arrival at Misery the news went round that the
Duke was willing at last to enter the race against the flier.

True to his peculiarities, the Duke had made conditions. He was willing
to race, but only if everybody else would keep out of it and give him a
clear and open field