cope with the difficulties than he, and as everybody seemed satisfied,
there was no occasion for him raising his voice in protest throughout
the dumb wilderness. Being personally very much occupied with his own
stamp mill, and the percentage of the pay-rock, he was just as pleased
that no local burden should be placed across the apex of his spinal
pillar. But now he had arrived at a point where the road divided. New
scenes must be introduced into his play--new machinery installed.
Through the microscope he saw that present conditions could not be
allowed to prevail. He was losing much valuable mineral over the dump.
He was angry. The sensitiveness of his nature had received a shock; he
had been shown up as the most unpopular man in Ashcroft. It was time for
him to have the mercury brought near to the fire. The next time prizes
were being handed around his arm would be the longest, and his voice the
loudest; and they would not be booby prizes neither. He had known men of
a few weeks standing only, rise to the very apex of popularity, while
he, with his ten years initiation, had not yet developed brains enough,
in the estimation of the Ashcroft people, that would justify them in
placing in his charge the management of the most trivial social affair.
What had he done that this measure should be constantly graduated out to
him? Well, things would be different. He would "can" personality and
take up the "big mitt" of public things. But how was this revolution in
the private disposition of a man to be accomplished? He had discovered
the result, but not the cause; so he began rooting among the sage brush
of the sand downs for the foundation stone of his social submergence.

"I have it!" he shouted one day. "If one wishes to make a puncture in
the affairs of this world one must assert himself; one must smite the
table top with one's fist every morning before breakfast. One must
assume such an atmosphere that the whole community will be cognizant of
one's presence, to-day, to-morrow, and all the time. One must assert