continent of an austere Puritan, showing how the strain emerges from
the wilderness at the Western ocean with a character so widely
differing from the one with which he began the adventurous
journey,--regarding, especially, a tolerance of the so-called good and
many of the bad things of life. Until this is done we may, perhaps,
consider the change to be without valid cause.

Young Bines, at all events, was the flower of a pioneer stock, and him
the gods of life cherished, so that all the forces of the young land
about him were as his own. Yet, though his pulses rhymed to theirs he
did not perceive his relation to them: neither he nor the land was yet
become introspective. So informed was he with the impetuous spirit of
youth that the least manifestation of life found its answering thrill
in him. And it was sufficient to feel this. There was no time barren
enough of sensation to reason about it. Uncle Peter's plan for an
inspection of the Bines properties had at first won him by touching his
sense of duty. He anticipated no interest or pleasure in the trip. Yet
from the beginning he enjoyed it to the full. Being what he was, the
constant movement pleased him, the out-of-doors life, the occasional
sorties from the railroad by horse to some remote mining camp, or to a
stock ranch or lumber-camp. He had been away for six years, and it
pleased him to note that he was treated by the people he met with a
genuine respect and liking as the son of his father. In the East he had
been accustomed to a certain deference from very uncertain people
because he was the son of a rich man. Here he had prestige because he
was the son of Daniel Bines, organiser and man of affairs. He felt
sometimes that the men at mine, mill, or ranch looked him over with
misgiving, and had their cautious liking compelled only by the
assurance that he was indeed the son of Daniel. They left him at these
times with the suspicion that this bare fact meant enough with them to