to count them. Count the chances for success. Don't be faint-hearted, for
there's no such thing as fear. It doesn't exist. It's merely an absence of
courage, just as indecision is merely a lack of decision. I never saw
anything yet of which I was afraid--and you're a _man_. The deity of
success is a woman, and she insists on being won, not courted. You've got
to seize her and bear her off, instead of standing under her window with a
mandolin. You need to be rough and masterful with her. Nobody ever
reasoned himself out of a street fight. He had to act. If a man thinks
over a proposition long enough it will whip him, no matter how simple it
is. It's the lightning flash that guides a man. You must lay your course
in the blue dazzle, then follow it in the dark; and when you come to the
end, it always lightens again. Don't stand still, staring through the
gloom, and then try to walk while the lightning lasts, because you won't
get anywhere."

Her words were charged with an electric force that communicated itself to
the young man and galvanized him into action. He would have spoken, but
she stayed him, and went on:

"Wait; I'm not through yet. I've watched you, and I know you are down on
your luck for some reason. You've been miscast somehow and you've had the
heart taken out of you; but I'm sure it's in you to succeed, for you're
young and intelligent, cool and determined. I am giving you this chance to
play the biggest game of your life, and erase in eight short months every
trace of failure. I'm not doing it altogether unselfishly, for I believe
you've been sent to Kalvik to work out your own salvation and mine, and
that of poor George Balt, whom you've never seen. You're going to do this
thing, and you're going to make it win."

Emerson reached out impulsively and caught her tiny, mittened hand. His