"What the devil's wrong? Your old
man's got too much money for you ever to be up against it. Dick, you
couldn't have gone to the bad?"

A tide of emotion surged over Gale. How good it was to meet a
friend--some one to whom to talk! He had never appreciated his
loneliness until that moment.

"George, how I ever drifted down here I don't know. I didn't exactly
quarrel with the governor. But--damn it, Dad hurt me--shamed me, and I
dug out for the West. It was this way. After leaving college I tried
to please him by tackling one thing after another that he set me to do.
On the square, I had no head for business. I made a mess of
everything. The governor got sore. He kept ramming the harpoon into me
till I just couldn't stand it. What little ability I possessed deserted
me when I got my back up, and there you are. Dad and I had a rather
uncomfortable half hour. When I quit--when I told him straight out that
I was going West to fare for myself, why, it wouldn't have been so
tough if he hadn't laughed at me. He called me a rich man's son--an
idle, easy-going spineless swell. He said I didn't even have character
enough to be out and out bad. He said I didn't have sense enough to
marry one of the nice girls in my sister's crowd. He said I couldn't
get back home unless I sent to him for money. He said he didn't
believe I could fight--could really make a fight for anything under the
sun. Oh--he--he shot it into me, all right."

Dick dropped his head upon his hands, somewhat ashamed of the smarting
dimness in his eyes. He had not meant to say so much. Yet what a
relief to let out that long-congested burden!

"Fight!" cried Thorne, hotly. "What's ailing him? Didn't they call
you Biff Gale in college? Dick, you were one of the best men Stagg
ever developed. I heard him say so--that you were the fastest,
one-hundred-and-seventy-five-pound man he'd ever trained, the hardest
to stop."

"The governor didn't count football," said Dick. "He didn't mean that
kind of fight. When I left home I don't think I had an idea what was
wrong with me. But, George, I think I know now. I was a rich man's
son--spoiled, dependent, absolutely ignorant of the value of money. I
haven't yet discovered any earning capacity in me. I seem to be unable
to do anything with my hands. That's the trouble. But I'm at the end
of my tether now. And I'm going to punch cattle or be a miner, or do
some real stunt--like joining the rebels.