CHAPTER VII 

 HORACE HAS AN ADVENTURE 



HORACE, it was plain, however the others felt, highly 

 approved of his new position on the baseline. He 

 went at his task zestfully, bearing his axe aloft as if 

 it had been a sceptre, and attacking trees and brush 

 with a headlong fury that threatened annihilation to 

 the forest. What mattered it that the swath he 

 cleared through the woods was yards off the line, or 

 if he at times dwelt so long upon the beautifying 

 of a station monument that his companions were 

 half a mile ahead before he finished. Horace was 

 having a lovely time ; that was sufficient. 



We wouldn't have minded this attitude those of 

 us, that is, who were not working on the baseline 

 if Horace had only kept his peculiar ideas to him- 

 self. But he displayed a sort of irritating air of 

 superiority about camp which irked us considerably. 

 Personal foibles which one can tolerate or dismiss 

 with a laugh in town assume entirely different pro- 

 portions in the woods. Conceit or egotism any 

 trait, in fact, which tends to infringe upon another's 

 personality acts with the cumulative force of drop- 

 ping water. Before long the most adamantine self- 

 control is worn away in the process. 



48 



