He stood erect now, with the color bright in his cheeks, one hand thrust into his pocket, the other clenching his pipe.
"I tell you," he declared, "I've missed too much! Life over here is a big thing!--it's wonderful, marvelous, grand, glorious! And who am I to spend winters on the dead old Nile when history is being made right here on White River! I tell you I want to watch the Great Experiment, and if I were not a poor, worthless, ignorant ass I'd be a part of it." Dan did not question the young fellow's sincerity.

His glowing eyes and the half-choked voice in which he concluded gave an authentic stamp to his lament and pronouncement.

A look of dejection crossed his face.

He had, by his own confession, asked Dan into the house merely to have some one to talk to; he was dissatisfied, unhappy, lonely; and his slender figure and flushed cheeks supported his own testimony that his health had been a matter of concern.

The Nile and the Alps against which he had revolted might not be so unnecessary as he believed.
The situation was so novel that Harwood's mind did not respond with the promptness of his heart.