One other thing drove his ambition steadily forward. In Ribe was a fair-haired girl, the daughter of the wealthiest and most prominent citizen. Wide was the social and financial gulf between the young and penniless carpenter and the young girl whom he desired for his wife. To everyone but himself his hopes seemed almost ridiculous in their impossibility. He alone refused to accept defeat. If money was needed, he would make it. If Denmark could not offer him success, there was a land beyond the Atlantic that could. He was twenty-one years old. In his pocket were forty dollars. It was not much, either in years of experience or in wealth; but he had his trade to fall back on, and, above all, he had “a pair of strong hands and stubbornness enough to do for two; also a strong belief that in a free country, free from the dominion of custom, of caste, as well as of men, things would somehow come right in the end.” From the deck of the steamer he watched the city of New York grow large on the horizon. Ships of the world filled the blue harbor. Tall spires of churches lifted above the roofs; wharves were alive with activity. A static quality was in the air; he was filled with a spirit of adventure and limitless opportunity. In Castle Garden, at the tip of New York, where in years past the immigrants were landed, a man was hiring laborers in an iron-works at Brady’s Bend in Pennsylvania. The pay seemed good, and Riis engaged to join the party which was being formed. The work was hard, but Riis’s knowledge of a trade stood him in good stead, and he was put at work building houses for the employees in the foundry. Then from a clear sky came news which abruptly changed his plans and the course of his entire life. France had declared war on Prussia, and Denmark was expected to join with France and avenge her wrongs of 1864. Back to his memory came the love of his own country, of her flag, and of what seemed his duty there. His brain aflame with patriotism, he threw up his job and hurried to Buffalo, and from there proceeded finally to New York. He had just one cent in his pocket; he had sold his clothes and small possessions to buy his ticket. But the Frenchmen in New York did not understand the young Dane who wanted them to send him home to fight if his country needed him; nor did those of his own countrymen whom he saw feel able to pay his transportation on this patriotic journey. Again and again young Riis offered himself. At every attempt rebuff or misfortune countered him. It was useless to try further. Reluctantly he abandoned his hope to join the French in their great struggle. Winter was at hand. To the scantily clad, starving, and penniless young man, the great city seemed to turn a cold and forbidding shoulder. But opportunity does not come to those who wait expectant of it: it is a prize to be won by struggle, and often by privation. Opportunity is everywhere, but it is only the stalwart, indomitable spirits who seek and seize it.