the life in a new place. The gradual awakening of his mind had given him
courage, and he thought of himself as armed and ready for association with
men. He wanted to become acquainted with and be the friend of people whose
lives were beautifully lived and who were themselves beautiful and full of
significance. As he sat on the steps of the railroad station in the poor
little Missouri town with his bag beside him, and thought of all the things
he wanted to do in life, his mind became so eager and restless that some of
its restlessness was transmitted to his body. For perhaps the first time
in his life he arose without conscious effort and walked up and down the
station platform out of an excess of energy. He thought he could not bear
to wait until the train came and brought the man who was to take his place.
"Well, I'm going away, I'm going away to be a man among men," he said to
himself over and over. The saying became a kind of refrain and he said it
unconsciously. As he repeated the words his heart beat high in anticipation
of the future he thought lay before him.




CHAPTER II


Hugh McVey left the town of Mudcat Landing in early September of the year
eighteen eighty-six. He was then twenty years old and was six feet and four
inches tall. The whole upper part of his body was immensely strong but his
long legs were ungainly and lifeless. He secured a pass from the railroad
company that had employed him, and rode north along the river in the night
train until he came to a large town named Burlington in the State of Iowa.
There a bridge went over the river, and the railroad tracks joined those of
a trunk line and ran eastward toward Chicago; but Hugh did not continue his