"I have tried to tell you," she rejoined, patiently. "It is a really worth-while ambition. You lack the desire to do something, the desire to be something--a desire that ought to have been yours, should have been yours, years ago--the thing part and parcel of our blood down here. It may take shape in any one of a hundred different things--business ventures; personal prospectings; pursuit of art, science; raising cattle--anything, Stephen! But something, something which will develop a real value, both to yourself and to your fellow-man. We have it. We have inherited it. We got it from our grandfathers--our great-grandfathers, in a few cases--men who wanted to know--to learn--to learn by doing. It is a powerful force. It must be a powerful force, it must have been strong within them, for it dragged them out of the comforts of civilization and led them into the desert. But they found what they sought; and in finding what they sought they found themselves also. And what they found--" "Was something which, having drawn them forward to the frontier, filled them with dislike for those who remained behind?" "If you wish to put it that way--yes." Her answer was straight and clean-cut. "But what of those who remained behind?" asked Stephen, alert now. "Surely the quality was there! It must be there yet! Those of the old-timers who remained behind must have stayed simply because of circumstances. Good men often curb the adventurous spirit out of sheer conscientious regard for others who--" "It is you, Stephen!" interrupted Helen, quietly. "It is you, yourself. All Easterners are not like you, I well know. Yet you and your type are found in all parts of the East." Stephen stood for a long moment, his eyes fixed on the mystic skyline. Then he turned to her as if about to speak. But there was only the silent message of his longing eyes. Finally he turned away and, as if unconsciously, fell to stroking the horse.