The man with a vision and a dream was never so comfortable as the man who merely had an objective. But he had more within him to stay his soul in the time of stress, Rod believed. Also it was a trifle surprising to find so nimble-minded a youth as the high-rigger working for a daily wage in a logging camp. True, his wage was six dollars per diem, which was equal to the stipend of some professors Rod knew. Nevertheless Rod considered that Andy, with his obvious intellectual ability, was misplaced at manual labor, even labor that called for a high degree of skill. He rather admired Andy's radicalism. There was a stout honesty of conviction in him. Rod was not go sure himself that all was for the best in the best of possible worlds,--that comfortable illusion which sustains so many worthy people. When he pondered Andy's simile of the complex machine gradually getting out of hand, proceeding to the ultimate smash, he couldn't help thinking of Grove's accelerated pace. That was merely a casual impression. Probably Grove had the levers firmly in hand. He had half a notion to go fishing, to wet a line in the Granite Pool. Or walk over the hill to Oliver Thorn's. Mary had probably gone back to town now. Still--it was very pleasant to lie there under the maple, to rest his body, to let his nostrils be titillated by a smell of doughnuts frying in the cook house. He ought to drop down on the slack and see Phil. Thus Rod, resting against the earth, two days' growth of beard on his chin, calked logger's boots on his feet, a gaudy mackinaw folded behind his head, cogitated idly, drowsily, until at last he fell into a doze from which the noon meal gong awakened him. CHAPTER XI The quality of persistence in the face of difficulties is one that men are variously endowed with. Hope revives in some breasts sooner than in others. To some the spur of a desire, a need, a conviction, never ceases wholly to rowel them into action. They cannot for long accept defeat or frustration as final. For such, the line of least resistance is closed. Reason, logic, all the chances of success may be against them, but they strive with infinite patience and unflagging courage toward a given end.